Tuesday, March 27, 2007

North American Adventure #2

Crown Royal XR (Extra Rare)
Canadian Whisky
40% abv
$175.20 (CAD)
$145 (USD)


Crown Royal is currently distilled at Gimli in Manitoba. This is a limited release made from the last batch of whisky distilled at the Waterloo distillery which closed in 1992. Shortly after closing, a fire destroyed most of the mothballed distillery and warehouses. Some of the whisky was saved and released in summer 2006 in the strictly allocated Crown Royal XR. Master Blender Andrew MacKay set out to try to create the finest Crown Royal ever to be bottled, and whether he achieved it or not, it is certainly among the rarest and most precious releases from Crown Royal.

Tasted this at the LCBO with Inder Marwah.
Special guest tasting contributor's notes will be in quotation marks.

TASTING NOTES:

Marachino cherries, or just the brine. Vanilla ice cream. "Lots of raw sugar, bits of chocolate. Iodine? A little rubbing alcohol."

"Burnt toast, blackened Naan in a pan." Marzipan, banana flavoured liquid penicillin. Compact in a way that I found charming and Inder found boring("Sweet, bitter, nuthin"). Lots of creamy oak and a whiff of smoke.

SUMMARY:

Inder was not impressed, but I really enjoyed it. It was sweet but well offset by the slightly puckering oak and fired bread flavours. Yeah, it's expensive, but you are really paying for the history and small batch blending craftsmanship that no other Crown Royal has.

North American Adventure #1
North American Adventure #3
North American Adventure #4
North American Adventure #5

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1 comment:

Unknown said...

I stand by my opinion - gobs of money for a thin, uncomplicated whisky whose price is based on pedigree and a fuzzy purple sleeve rather than substance. Wham! I said it.