Canadian whisky has an image problem. As Scotch and bourbon were reframed as elite, cultured drams, as American rye resurrected itself, and as Irish and Japanese spirits won new measures of respect and popularity, Canada remained the unglamorous workhorse of the whisky world, producing dependable, light-bodied, mixing whiskies derided by connoisseurs as “brown vodka.”

To add injury to insult, Canadian distillers’ long-dominant position in the United States has receded in recent years as sales have been flat.

But Canadian whisky (spelled without an “e”) has been taking small steps out of the shadows. New bottles proclaim themselves “small batch” and “single barrel,” and boast higher proofs and unusual wood treatments.

“I think we’re coming into a fairly excited time,” said Davin de Kergommeaux, a Canadian whisky writer who runs the blog Canadian Whisky (canadianwhisky. org). “Canadian distillers are getting together and trying to rebuild their image.”

A change was certainly needed. “The Canadian whisky category has been rapidly losing ground to bourbon, rye and Tennessee whiskey for 10 years,” said Chris Morris, the master distiller for the liquor conglomerate Brown-Forman.

Brown-Forman, like its industry peers, has a stake in Canada’s liquor fortunes. It owns Canadian Mist, just as Diageo owns Crown Royal and Beam Global Spirits owns Canadian Club.

For the Canadian whisky maverick John Hall, this sort of foreign ownership was part of the problem.

“ In the late ‘80s, the Scotch guys were starting to bring out single malts and the bourbon guys were doing small-batch bourbon,” he said. “ I thought we needed to try to bring a heritage back to Canadian whisky.”

Mr. Hall founded an independent distillery in 1992, taking a different approach to making Forty Creek Barrel Select, his debut whisky. “I don’t use a mash bill,” he said, referring to the recipe of fermented grains that determines the characters of many whiskies. Instead he distills and ages each grain (corn, rye, malted barley) in separate barrels and, after a 6-to- 10-year wait (Canadian law requires only three years), blends them . He released Forty Creek Barrel Select ($23) in 2002, a spirit far richer and deeper than one typically associates with Canada.

Last year’s Confederation Oak Reserve, aged in Canadian oak barrels, not the typical American casks, is priced at $70; the limited run is nearly sold out.

Now America’s Sazerac Company and Brown-Forman have rolled out new premium Canadians. Sazerac, based in New Orleans, arguably had an edge in its master blender, Drew Mayville. A Canadian who worked many years for the liquor conglomerate Diageo, putting out Crown Royal and Seagram’s VO, Mr. Mayville knew what was wrong and had an idea about how to fix it.

“It was what your dad drank,” he said of Canada’s whisky. “People are getting bored with it. ” In other words, people want bourbon, rye and Scotch.

The result: last year’s releases of Caribou Crossing Single Barrel and Royal Canadian Small Batch. “For Caribou I wanted older whiskies that will knock your socks off,” Mr. Mayville said. “The Royal Crown was designed to be rich and very smooth .” He is also working on four new Canadian products.

Mr. Morris, too, wanted to create a “full-flavored, rich expression of Canadian whisky.” But he also knew he had to execute a balancing act of attracting new whisky drinkers while not alienating devotees of the Canadian style. “We had to walk that line,” he said. He set the smooth, tripledistilled Collingwood apart by resting the finished whisky with toasted maplewood.

New brands are not the only changes up north. Last year, Canadian Mist introduced the rye-heavy Canadian Mist Black Diamond, and the industry leader Crown Royal has come out with a few new expressions, including Crown Royal Black, with a higher alcohol content than Canadian law requires.

“I really believe it’s woken up the category,” Mr. Hall said of the new bottlings. “Competition is good. It just means there’s that many more good whiskies .”

And maybe Canadian drinkers will take notice.

“Like most Canadian things - artists, actors - they get recognized in the U.S. first,” Mr. Hall joked. “Then Canada says, ‘Oh, it must be O.K. then.’ ”