If you are 40-45 years or older, you probably have some fond memories of Crown Royal Blended Canadian Whisky from your twenties. With the cool purple box and even cooler purple bag, it seemed the height of luxury. It was what you ordered at the bar when you had some extra cash or just wanted to impress someone, usually a lady, with how sophisticated you were. For some reason, saying Crown & Coke sounder better than Jim or Jack and Coke, in hindsight, it seems stupid to pay more for a juice just to drown it in cola.
As mentioned above, Crown Royal is a blended Canadian Whisky, which means it does not follow the Bourbon laws we are all familiar with. So, more similar to American Whiskey, where there can be a wide range and mixture of grains, charred or uncharred barrels, and no set time in the barrel. And yes, there is no “e” as in whiskey in the name. If the drink was made in America or Ireland, the spelling is Whiskey, if made in Canada, Japan, or Scotland, the spelling is Whisky.
Crown Royal can be found everywhere liquor is sold, is 80 proof, sells for around $23, and comes in an ornate, very recognizable screw-top bottle. The mash bill is 64% corn, 31.5% rye and 4.5% malted barley. We could not find an age statement. As to the bottle and bag, from their website “Dressed in the finest cut glass and wrapped in purple robes, to commemorate the first grand tour of Canada by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1939.”
With the boom in Whiskey these past 10 years, and especially the premium ones, Crown has definitely lost its luster. They have some premium and rye offerings but were a little late to the game. It has been years since either of us has had a glass, which, seeing how it played a big role in our early drinking days, seems sad. We only have this bottle because one of us won it at a white elephant gift exchange. So, let’s wander down memory lane and see if we just went away from Crown for the next cool thing, or was the next cool thing just better.
NOSE
Matt: I like the smell better than I thought I would. Lots of nice scents, including almonds, green grapes, rye, vanilla, and a touch of clove and cinnamon. And I have to say it, maple syrup. Ice makes everything lighter but changes nothing.
Todd: Not bad with some white chocolate, vanilla, rye, and a slight nuttiness. I also pick up the clove and cinnamon as well as the grape. Ice does nothing.
TASTE
Matt: Light and sweet, almost too sweet, with milk chocolate, vanilla, toffee, and brown sugar. Also, tasting some rye, cereal, and anise. Ice just brought on more sweetness.
Todd: Very smooth neat with a unique flavor that I cannot quite nail down. What I can nail down is sweet milk chocolate, some rye, some corn, and a bit of black pepper. Ice dumbs it down but does add a bit of grain.
FINISH
Matt: Short to medium with some earthiness.
Todd: Medium with both sweetness and bitterness, odd.
OVERALL
Matt: A bit too sweet for my taste, but I am surprised how much I got from it. I won’t make fun of Crown drinkers anymore.
Todd: Better than expected, but not good enough to bring me back to it.
Nose 3.75 out of 5
Taste 6.5 out of 10
Finish 3.25 out of 5
Total score 13.5 out of 20 barrels.
It seems youth was not served, even though we both were a bit surprised by how much we got on the nose and tongue from this bottle. But to be clear, we were not expecting much, so we wouldn’t go as far as to call it complex.
In the end, you might want to have a bottle of Crown Royal on hand; the price is very affordable, and it could make for a decent mixer. It is also a light, smooth drink that a person just getting into brown liquors might enjoy. Also, it is still a big seller, so you might have a guest ask for a glass. We might keep a bottle on hand as a homage to our twenties, even though the thought of adding this sweet stuff to a cola sounds terrible. What the hell were we thinking?