Odd Society Spirits Storm Black Plague

Katharine Manson

For decades, Sesame Street sang “The People in Your Neighbourhood.” It’s the earworm that haunts every parent's dreams and has featured every neighbour’s profession, from astronaut to zookeeper. In East Vancouver, they sing a different tune. “These are the Breweries in your Neighbourhood.” From astronauts to zookeepers, no one will ever go thirsty in East Van.

The team at Odd Society Spirits is no stranger to these community breweries. “When we first started out, Storm Brewing would do our mashing because we didn't have mashing equipment,” explains Odd Society founder Gordon Glanz. “We would pick up the full 1000-litre totes of wort, drive them three blocks to Odd Society and pump the wort into our fermenters.” So, the idea to form an alliance with local breweries had been percolating for a while.

Before he joined Glanz at Odd Society in 2016, distiller Joel McNichol had been making beer at a nearby brewery. The timing seemed right and his connections made it happen. In late 2020, Odd Society released three whiskies in collaboration with local breweries. These include a whisky called Storm Black Plague made in partnership with Storm Brewing.

Distilling & Blending Up a Storm

This release is a little different than the two other whiskies in the series. Instead of Storm providing the mash for Black Plague, as Parallel 49 and Doan had done for their collaborations, the whisky was mashed at the distillery using 100% rye grain. They then aged it for three years in a barrel that has seen its fair share of action.

The first fill bourbon barrel initially aged Odds Society vodka. “When we opened the lounge, we were only allowed to serve cocktails using spirits that we made in the back. This rule has since changed,” says Glanz. “Because we didn't have any whisky, we decided to age our vodka in a barrel to have a more whisky-like spirit choice for drinks.” The empty barrel was sent to Storm Brewing to age their popular Black Plague Stout, then it was sent back to Odd Society to age the rye.

“We blended the stout-barrel-aged whisky with a bit of single malt and the result is a true-to-form dram with a spicy rye nose and anise finish. Not as wild as one might expect from Storm but noteworthy none-the-less,” says Glanz.

For the final whisky, the Odd Society team blended 75% of the stout-aged rye with 25% of the distillery’s Blender’s Release Single Malt. This particular malt is a story in itself –  a one-off product, created with Glanz’s former Heriot-Watt colleague Dhavall Gandhi as part of a blenders’ training session. 

After finishing at Heriot-Watt, Gandhi went on to blend whisky for The Macallan, then took a position with Lakes Distillery in the UK.  “He came to visit just before Covid and we had a blending workshop with ten British Columbia distillers. Dhavall helped us put together a blend. We had some whisky leftover because we had run out of bottles when we bottled the Blenders Release. So, we decided to add it to the Black Plague whisky,” says Glanz.

Tasting Odd Society Storm Black Plague

Storm Black Plague Whisky, which is bottled at 46%, is deeply integrated, as a blend should be. And within this seamless profile, several flavours from the whisky’s neighbourhood twirl in unison to create a whisky with a sense of community.

At first on the nose, soft wintergreen trailblazes to fresh and lively rye and malt cereals accented by dry grasses and a potpourri of spices. The whisky flares immediately on the palate with a swift uppercut of hot rye spices and bittersweet malts. A young peppery woody note blends with puffed cereals sprinkled with baker’s chocolate on a long herbal finish.

Storm Brewing has had the reputation of being a creative and innovative force within the Canadian beer landscape ever since brewer James Walton opened the brewery in 1994. The building housing Storm looks like it was attacked by a graffiti artist with a cartoon rat infatuation. The resulting artwork that bedecks the building tells the story of a busy brewery, one where the rats are far from jumping ship. As one unnamed reviewer put it, Storm is an "excellent atmosphere if you don't suck." And the same could be said about a whisky seasoned with their stout. It’s yet another excellent whisky in the Odd Society neighbourhood and a fine example of the innovative spirits they make each day.