Canadian Club

In 1858, American Hiram Walker founded a distillery in Detroit, producing whiskey under the trade name Hiram Walker's Club Whisky. At that time, the state of Michigan was attempting to pass Prohibition, and to avoid restrictions or bans on the sale of his products, Hiram moved his factory to the Canadian city of Windsor, in the province of Ontario. Over time, the brand name became known as Club Whisky, and finally, as a tribute to the country, in 1889, Hiram renamed it Canadian Club, both to distinguish his product from beverages from the United Kingdom and to indicate the addition of new ingredients to the recipe that are now known as true Canadian whiskey. The company's economic importance to the area was such that a town was created in 1935 to house the distillery, named Walkerville. Canadian Club whisky was one of the main brands smuggled during the American Prohibition era in the 1920s and 1930s.