The People of the Scottish Society of Ottawa: Emmett Hossack
Emmett Hossack
Emmett Hossack is one of the founders of the Scottish Society of Ottawa. He remembers attending the first meeting of interested people on March 21, 2012 in Senator Doug Findley’s office, along with John Ivison and Bethany Bisaillion. The Ottawa St. Andrew’s Society was not very active, and this group felt that someone needed to carry forward Scottish culture.
The Scottish Society of Ottawa was created, with the original focus of Hogmanay. In early days John Ivison was constantly fundraising, and Emmett volunteered to host a whisky tasting to help. The first whisky tasting was held in December of 2012 and raised $697 for the SSO. At the outset, when founders were scrambling to get the first Hogmanay off ground, Emmett was responsible for ice sculptures at City Hall as well as whisky tasting.
After incorporation, Emmett became the first Vice Chair and was in this position for several years. When he stepped down from the leadership position he still wanted to be involved in promoting Scotch whisky and has continued to host whisky tastings to benefit the Scottish Society. Emmett also sits on the Nominations Committee.
Over the past 10 years, the whisky tastings organized by Emmett have generated more than $25,000 in proceeds for the Scottish Society of Ottawa and encouraged hundreds of people to enjoy Scotch whisky!
Emmett is a second generation Canadian, born in Ottawa, and has always lived here except for a year abroad after university. He wears the MacIntosh tartan as Hossack is a sept of MacIntosh clan. His paternal grandfather James Hossack was born in Stornoway and emigrated to Canada in 1912, originally to Montreal and then Ottawa. James was the president of Ottawa St. Andrew’s Society from 1949 to 1956. Emmett’s mother was Irish, and his maternal grandparents came over in 1840 during the potato famine and settled as farmers.
Emmett became interested in whisky in 1966. After his first university degree he went to Europe for a year. He found a teaching job at The Vale of Leaven Academy, and stayed at a rooming house in Dunbarton. It was here, in a part of Scotland famous for distilleries, that he was introduced to whisky and began his life-long love of the uisce beatha, the water of life.
Emmett always loved drinking whisky. In 2002 he joined the An Quaich Society and began tasting whisky instead of simply drinking. He started to explore different Scotch whiskies and pay attention to the variety of aromas and flavours. In 2009, he went to the Islay Whisky Festival in Scotland with friend Herb Wallace - their photographer wives were going to Paris, and husbands were not invited, so they decided to attend a whisky master class instead. Emmett has since signed up for many master classes, working with many distilleries and learned everything he can about whisky. Every year since 2009, he has been going to Scotland to attend different whisky festivals and as many master classes as he can. He also started attending festivals in Canada (Ottawa, Toronto, Fredericton and Victoria) and meeting various distillery reps. These relationships have allowed him to ask, on behalf of SSO, to provide whisky for the tutored tastings.
Emmett has also developed Whisky Scores (https://whiskyscores.com) along with his friend Herb Wallace. This data base and the scoring is a way to remember the whiskies tasted (over 5,000 to date) with 95% of those whiskies tasted at festivals, or as sample bottles provided by distilleries and whisky clubs. He then tweets about the whisky, and has developed a base of loyal followers.
Emmet counts Davin de kergommeaux, Canada’s whisky guru, as his mentor, and he in turn acts as a mentor to many others. He is well known in the whisky world. He has membership in a few whisky groups including the Ottawa Whisky Guild (active), the Ottawa Whisky Lovers Society (OWLS) Ottawa single malt fellowship, the Van Quaich (companions to Quaich club in Vancouver), the 101 club in Montreal, and the Scottish Malt Whisky Society in Edinburgh – a private club with 30,000 members.
Emmett continues supporting the Scottish Society of Ottawa because he enjoys making a difference; loves whisky and Scottish things. He promotes an understanding and appreciation of whisky through SSO and believes people ought to share skills and talents where and when they can. He also has a very valuable talent of calming the waters and holding a group together with focus, which has proved extremely useful over the years
Emmett has hosted nine tutored whisky tastings for the SSO (soon to be 10), numerous “heel” parties and “heel” auctions, and organized tasting for other groups. Any profit or fees Emmett makes come back to the Scottish Society of Ottawa.
Emmett has been married 52 years to his photographer wife, Leslie. They have two boys, John, and Paul, and four grandchildren who all live in Vancouver. In his spare time, Emmett owns his own consulting business (Hossack Consulting), volunteer with some small businesses, follow English premier league (and cheers for Liverpool), and enjoys keeping fit himself.
He loves to explore aromas and flavors, including teas from specialty tea shops, and encourages people to help children appreciate aromas and flavours. A favourite family game is blind tasting - what do you notice, feel, taste, smell – using chocolate, cheese, and ice cream!
Before whisky, he was a wine taster!
Some fun facts about Emmett – his favourite Scot (dead) is Robbie Burns, and alive is Robin Laing (The Whisky Bard - Robin Laing. When asked to tell us something about himself that might surprise us he responded that he is “Left-handed and in his right-mind.”
Thank you, Emmett, for your many continued contributions to the Scottish Society of Ottawa!