A lot of Canadian Rye uses a lot of grain alcohol. If you pick a bottle at random off the shelf (assuming US market), it’s unlikely to be good.

There are many great Canadian Ryes. But if you’re new to cocktails, odds are against you finding them at your local liquor store, and you probably don’t need them for the drink you’re trying to make. I didn’t mean to disparage the category. Lot 40 and Alberta Dark Horse/Dark Batch have earned their accolades.

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scosman 2 days ago | parent [-]

If you're picking random bottles of the shelf you're not going to have a good time with any category. Tequila, rum, American whiskey, etc -- the most popular stuff is pretty bad.

You did disparage the category, but it still seems based off not understanding what it is. The listed Canadian whiskeys are great and meet the US definition of Rye, but Canadian Rye is a bigger category with lots of great stuff to explore. Just don't substitute it into the wrong drink and blame the bottle.

	▲	yojo 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I agree rum is hard. I said as much in my post. Tequila is fine as long as you grab a bottle that says 100% Puro De Agave. Compliance requires it be all blue agave with no sugars or additives. It might have lost a lot of character to an autoclave, but it won’t be gross. It is hard to go wrong grabbing a bottle of straight bourbon. By law to be bourbon there are assurances about the contents - no sugar/flavor/color added, aged in new charred barrels, minimum 51% corn, etc. Straight rye (or better yet BiB) has similar guarantees. Canadian Rye does not have these requirements. It could be 5% rye and 95% wheat in fourth-fill barrels. It could have sugar added. It could have weird flavors added. You should know what you’re doing if you’re shopping Canadian Rye. I can’t give you a one liner on how to avoid the traps. But most importantly, this is a thread about cocktails, and you have to get pretty deep into craft cocktails before you find any that call for Canadian rye. I am trying to give rules of thumbs for newbies to avoid common pitfalls, one of which is seeing a drink that calls for “rye” and grabbing a bottle of Canadian rye. On that note, if you have some great recipes calling for Canadian rye, I’d love to hear them. I’ve got a bottle each of Forty Creek Copper Pot and Crown Northern harvest that are languishing on my shelf.