It’s a tempest in a scotch bottle.

With the announcement that the House of Commons has chosen a new official scotch — a 12-year-old Aberlour Highland single malt — some Canadian whisky distillers and experts are crying foul.

“We have a vibrant Canadian whisky industry,” said Davin de Kergommeaux, author of a primer on Canadian whisky and co-ordinator of the Canadian Whisky Awards, held each January. “My question is, why is the government promoting imported whisky over our own?”

“Canadian whisky is getting such a good reputation. It surprises me that they (the Speaker, senators and MPs) don’t feel the same.”

De Kergommeaux said he’s not alone in being angry. He said he is having trouble keeping up with all the tweets and emails about this slap in the face to the Canadian whisky industry.

“My point is they shouldn’t have to compete with scotch,” de Kergommeaux said — it should be a made-in-Canada contest.

His sentiments are shared by Jan Westcott, chief executive officer of Spirits Canada, a national trade association. “It’s absolutely outrageous. What are they thinking? It makes no sense when Canada makes some of the best whisky in the world.”

In fact, earlier this year Jim Murray, a British expert who publishes the Whisky Bible, named Canada’s Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye as the world’s best whisky, said Westcott. “We’ve been making whisky here for over 200 years. We’re older than the country. Don’t you think a Canadian whisky should be representing Canadian Parliament?”

According to the Speaker’s office, the Speaker’s “Selection Scotch” was chosen in a blind-taste test and a number of Canadian whiskies and international products were involved. The test was part of a “traditional scotch tasting,” said Heather Bradley, director of communications for the Office of the Speaker, Halifax MP Geoff Regan.

“Senators and members of Parliament were invited to sample a variety of scotches by blind taste test, and to vote for their favourite,” said Bradley. “Speaker Regan insisted that Canadian whiskies be invited to participate.”

The Speaker of the House, senators and MPs participated in the taste-testing after this year’s Burns Supper — to celebrate the Scottish poet Robert Burns — on Jan. 25. Bradley would not list which Canadian whisky producers participated in the contest.

The winner, which retails for about $65 for a 750-mL bottle at the LCBO, is described as a medium amber scotch with a palate that is persistent with a “good intensity of apricots, caramel, spice, ginger, cinnamon, vanilla and toast completed by a long, warm finish.” Most scotch connoisseurs agree that Aberlour Highland single malt is an excellent whisky.

It will be used at official functions and can be bought by parliamentarians for $75 per bottle with a special label, according to Bradley.

(For those that are confused: all scotches are whisky, but not all whiskies are scotch. Like champagne, which can only be produced in the French region of the same name, scotch — which is a whisky — can only be produced in Scotland. The same product, when made in Canada, is called whisky, so Regan would have been pushing the boundaries of his “Selection Scotch” if he had in fact picked a local product.)

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The relatively young tradition of picking an official scotch dates back to 2003 when Peter Milliken, a Kingston MP and then Speaker, decided to import the tradition from his counterpart in the British House of Commons.

During his term as Speaker, Milliken choose two whiskies — a Talisker and a Dalwhinnie. The most recent Speaker, Conservative MP Andrew Scheer of Regina, selected a Glenmorangie. All three were traditional scotches.