Water & Climate

Windsor doesn't sit on a lake, but on a river that connects two Great Lakes. The Detroit River carries water from Lake Huron into Lake Erie, separating Canada from the US by only a few hundred meters. Hiram Walker tapped exactly this water for his distillery, filtered through the sediments of the lakes.

Toronto sits on Lake Ontario, the easternmost and smallest of the five Great Lakes. Gooderham & Worts once drew its water from these shores. Collingwood, in turn, looks out onto Georgian Bay, an arm of Lake Huron. There too, the lake feeds the Canadian Mist distillery. Three locations, three lakes, yet the same principle everywhere: Ontario sits in the middle of the largest freshwater system on Earth.

Beneath the fields and distilleries lies mostly limestone and dolomite, deposited millions of years ago in a shallow primordial sea. The Niagara Escarpment, a long ridge of exactly this rock, runs across southern Ontario. It filters both rainwater and groundwater before they reach rivers and wells. For the distilleries, this means soft, mineral-poor water that doesn't overpower the mash with flavor.

The climate is continental, with hot, humid summers and cold, often snowy winters in between. Rapid temperature swings are part of Ontario's yearly rhythm. For the barrels in Windsor or Collingwood, this means constant breathing. In summer the wood expands, and the whisky penetrates deep into the barrel. In winter it contracts and pushes the liquid back out.