The Experts Guide to Bearface
7 Year-Old Triple-Cask Finished Canadian Whiskey Elementally Aged
Written by Brian Donnelly, CSS, WSET III
April 18, 2022
“New-make spirits are like the ABCs, the individual letters of the alphabet. Aging allows us to turn those letters into words and then blending is how we turn those words into stories.”
Overview
The Mark Anthony Group of Companies, founded in 1972, is a privately owned alcoholic drink company based in Vancouver, Canada. The company is perhaps most well-known for creating and building Mike's Hard Lemonade and White Claw into the massive brands they’re today. The Mark Anthony Crafted Spirits portfolio focuses on three products at the time of writing: Beaface Canadian Whisky, Glendalough Irish Whiskey, and Glendalough Irish Gin.
Bearface is a triple cask-finished Canadian Whisky aged inside repurposed shipping containers and exposed to the elements in the Canadian wilderness. Master Blender Andrés Faustinelli, Venezuelan by birth but raised in Italy, specifically chose Canada for his new whisky because the country's loose whisky rules would give him maximum flexibility when crafting a unique new product.
Book & Product Recommendations
For recommendations on Spirit and Cocktail books, products, and accessories please visit The Spirits Educator store! Thank you!
Production
Bearface begins as a single grain corn distillate aged seven years in ex-Bourbon American Oak barrels in traditional warehouses in Ontario. This product contains no rye in the mash bill and carries a seven-year age statement on the label, both rare in the Canadian Whisky category. Faustinelli sources this distillate but then assumes complete control of the maturation process by aging the whisky in their warehouses from day one. The base corn whisky has a mild flavor profile and will become the base for building lays of flavors through cask finishing.
Next, the maturation process transitions from traditional warehouses to what the brand calls "elemental aging." In elemental aging, the whisky is cask finished in two additional barrels, which are stored in repurposed shipping containers in the wild Canadian wilderness of British Columbia in the Okanagan Valley in between a large lake and the mountains. Some of the containers are oriented North-South and others East-West. The shipping containers full of aging whisky are left exposed to the elements, and the temperature inside the shipping containers will rare from -30°F to 100°F (-30°C to 40°C). The extreme northern climate amplifies how the whisky and wood interact, transforming the liquid inside for a bolder, smoother flavor.
Photo by Andrés Faustinelli, Master Blender
7-year-old whisky, Ex-Bourbon, American Oak (Left) and 3 months in the first-fill Ex-Red Wine Cask, French Oak (Right)
Inside these containers, the whisky is next cask-finished in first-fill ex-red wine French oak casks for three to six months. These casks are only used once and previously held Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot from the Mission Hill winery in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. Faustinelli intentionally uses wine casks from big and bold high tannin wines to build his whisky's mid-palate. Still, inside the shipping containers, the whisky receives its third and final cask, finishing in virgin Hungarian oak for 14 days. For three years, the Hungarian oak is seasoned or air-dried, then toasted three ways: medium, medium-plus, and heavy. Each toast gives a different flavor, and the three are blended. The Hungarian oak is the last layering piece and delivers unique spice, barbecue, and gentle smoke flavors to the whisky, which would not be present in a 100% corn-based whisky. Faustinelli got the idea to use Hungarian oak from some winemakers in Napa Valley.
Master Blender, Andrés Faustinelli, empties around 160 ex-American oak barrels and fills 100 ex-wine Casks. Depending on the seasons, the second cask finishing takes three and six months in the containers. The barrels with the best color and taste are transferred to around 70-75 virgin Hungarian casks. The brand uses exclusively mineral-rich water solely sourced from the mountains of the Okanagan Valley. Bearface is a whisky made in a winemaker's style with constant blending. From a 7-year-old base whisky to bottling, the whisky’s transformation is completed in 100 days. The final product has a flavor profile that is barrel forward & fruity but also smooth & mellow and is bottled at 85 proof (42.5% ABV).
Listen to a great interview with Andrés Faustinelli on The Whisky Topic Podcast, here.
Visit the company’s website for more information, here.
MSRP = $39.99 (750 ML)
Please Drink Responsibly
All registered trademarks used under license and imported by Mark Anthony Crafted Spirits, Chicago, IL.
Support The Spirits Educator
If you would like to support the content here, please click the button below to buy me a cocktail or neat pour through PayPal. You can also use Venmo @thespiritseducator.
Thank you for your support!
Affiliate Disclosure
The links for product recommendations in this post are affiliate links. At zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. This helps support this channel so that I can continue to bring you new content.