Canadian Club

In 1858, grain merchant Hiram Walker crossed the Detroit River into Canada. He built his distillery in Walkerville, Ontario, drawn by the quality of the local grain. He stamped his own name on every barrel, an unusual mark of accountability at the time. By 1893 the whisky carried a new name, Canadian Club, and it stuck. When the United States banned alcohol in 1920, Canada kept distilling and exporting it legally. Canadian Club became the most smuggled whisky crossing the Detroit River into the country, a favorite of bootleggers supplying secret bars. That reputation as Prohibition's whisky of choice only added to its fame. Today Canadian Club belongs to Suntory Global Spirits, decades after Walker's death in 1899. Walkerville, the town he built for his distillery workers, later became part of Windsor, Ontario. The whisky is still made close to where Walker first set up shop on the riverbank.