welcome friends welcome back to cocktails after dark where I am
exploring different cocktails and spirits to try to find it what I like
today I want to do a cocktail called a Habitant Whisky Maple and it originates in the late
1940s in Quebec and Habitant is is the French word or French-Canadian word for
the earliest settlers that came to Canada or came to New France from France
it's also what Montreal is call their hockey team the Montreal Canadiens they
call them the Habs or Habitant and that sort of ties in with one of the
whiskey's I was given this whiskey this Wayne Gretzky
99 red cask at an event and all of the whiskey people at the event said oh it's
horrible it's terrible stuff so it's been sitting over there on the shelf and
I keep thinking what am I gonna do with it
so today I cracked it open I'm gonna give it a taste and we're gonna do this
cocktail Abbey tall and we're going to use the Wayne Gretzky 99 we're gonna put
it up against the Canadian Club small cask sherry cask and the reason I chose
the sherry cask is that this one the Wayne Gretzky is finished in red wine
barrels at Wayne Gretzky's winery in niagara-on-the-lake so on the nose it's
very sweet and I'm not getting much else from it than just sweetness ah let's see
it's sweet it's hot it is really hot so this is 40% alcohol by volume so it
tastes way hotter than it really is and all I'm getting are sort of those sweet
notes heat from the alcohol and some tannins from the from the barrels red
wine tannin the big red wine cannons now that's been in my mouth a little bit
longer so the cocktail I think we'll play with let's see
so the cocktail is whiskey bitters lemon juice and special ingredient that's
still in the fridge now the recipe is fairly vague Canadian whiskey lemon
juice maple syrup and aromatic bitters it doesn't say which aromatic bitters to
use so I think I'm gonna I'm gonna smell through I've got three different kinds
here I've got fees pay showed and of course Angostura and let's compare
mmm-maybe yeah okay I'm gonna do the fee brothers
I think the fee brothers might work well with this and we'll find out about the
sherry cask when we get to it so this is a shaken cocktail let's get right to it
okay so one and a half ounces of whiskey and of course the the amounts are all in
the description below the video and at the end of the video and a dash of the
fee brothers bitters I hate dashes I think I'm going to move all of these
into eyedroppers so that I can control it a little bit better because the tops
on these are all different sizes and this one is particularly large so there
we go let's hope I can get it the same in the next one next up is some maple
syrup so a little jug of maple syrup here it doesn't take much only about a
half an ounce see from do this without spilling
and the same amount of lemon juice ice the tin and shake okay ice and we're
gonna double strain this okay this looks really good looks really good
smells really good too so I'm gonna put that there I'm gonna put the wayne
gretzky behind it so that I know which is which and now we'll move on it will
do exactly the same with the sherry cask
eighteen club feed brothers bitters
maple syrup
lemon juice ice in the tin and shit okay so here we have the late 40s Abbi Tov
cocktail it is a Canadian whiskey cocktail and
I've made it with two separate whiskeys I'm gonna pour out a little bit of the
sherry cask I think it's only fair that I give this a sniff before I taste the
cocktail okay so it's been a while since I've had the CC sherry cask and I kind
of remember that I wasn't a terribly fond of it last time I had it but it was
good in mixed drinks so
yeah that's what I remember so neither of these neither of these are whiskies
that I would drink on their own slightly higher alcohol this one's 41.3 and this
one is 40 so let's try it in the cocktail I'm hoping they smooth out in
there a little bit better okay right off the top
I get that fibra bitters it's so aromatic I think it's one of my favorite
aromatic bitters yeah ah yeah okay I give it another go just to wash that out
of my mouth and now I can really taste it I think this time yeah okay so that
um the feed brothers bitters brings a huge amount of flavor the lemon brings a
brightness that maple syrup is a bottom note and the whiskey just sort of rounds
it out nicely it's it's in there but it's not overpowering and I think it I
don't want to say hides the flaws but it sort of hides the flaws to my palate
that this whiskey has so let's try the sherry cask on the nose I'm getting
pretty much the same thing there's not too much difference between the smell of
the two this one is darker but you know it is Canadian whiskey they are allowed
to put a little bit of caramel color in which they may or may not have done I
don't know what they do to this one
okay Frick comparable cocktails you know in a lot of these tests right tests two
different spirits in the same cocktail the cocktails can be completely
different these ones are surprisingly similar even
though the whiskies are completely different in their flavor profiles
neither of them are great whiskies in my opinion my personal opinion I wouldn't
drink either of these on their own in this cocktail though I say I would like
either of these although I am leaning towards the Wayne Gretzky in this case
there's something about it something about it that is just a more
well-rounded flavor so I do like that cocktail I don't think it's terribly
balanced as written I don't think it's terribly balanced I think the lemon is a
little bit too much a little bit too strong and if I had a dropper I would
probably cut back on the bitters a tad the whole and that fee brothers bitters
bottle is big and I think there's too much of that bitter flavor in there but
I think this is a good starting point I think this is a cocktail that I would
play with a little bit more and sort of fine-tune it and get it to where I want
to be I think a little bit salt would be great to be quite honest I think salt
would add quite a bit to this this may be a little bit of a saline solution
that I have I think I'm gonna try this again I think I'm gonna work on this one
a little bit in the background just to tighten it up and bring all of the
flavors together a little bit better but that's why I'm doing this that's why I'm
out here in my studio playing around with these
cocktail recipes and different spirits just to find out what I like and what I
don't like and how I would change it and make it better if you're interested in
this cocktail give it a try and maybe make note of what you would change and
then let me know down in the comments below and also if you've got either of
these whiskies in your cabinet tell me what whether you like them or not and
what you've done with them what you like to mix them with I think they're both
mixing whiskies not straight up or on the rocks whiskeys
for me anyway so thanks for stopping by hope to see you again soon
you