J. P. Wiser’s Whisky is Canada’s oldest continuously produced whisky. Although funnily enough, as it was established in 1857, it was actually being made before Canada was even… Well, Canada.
In 1857 John Philip Wiser was running the Charles Payne Distillery owned by his uncle in Prescott, Ontario. Five years later, he bought his uncle out, becoming its sole owner. The whisky was only sold in casks or barrels until 1893, when the first bottles of J. P. Wiser’s were seen at the Chicago World’s Fair that year. By the early 1900s the distillery was the third largest in Canada, though sadly Wiser died in 1911. The company struggled without Wiser, and eventually in 1935 it merged with Hiram Walker. Since the 1980s, J.P. Wiser's Whisky has been distilled and bottled at the Hiram-Walker & Sons distillery in Windsor, Ontario.