Crown Royal Reserve Review

Greetings. We continue on with our first venture into the whisky of Canada with Crown Royal Reserve. Formerly “Special Reserve” but now the less special “Reserve” is the premium version of the ever popular Crown Royal Canadian whisky. The Spokane Whisky Club is now including Canada in our regular rotation of styles we review throughout the year, and I think it’s a good thing. There is a painful fact of life we all must come to grips with and it is this: more Canadian whisky is consumed in America than Bourbon, like it or not. While you think about that, on to some specifics for CR Reserve…

Andrew McKay, Master Blender for Crown Royal, selects the whisky for Reserve from the vast stocks aging in their warehouses. In fact, there are over 2 million barrels to choose from. The whisky selected is generally aged longer than standard Crown Royal and all together represents less than 1% of the entire stock according to the small amount of information I could find on this bottling. Let’s see what McKay blended up for us.

SWC Group Review

Nose– Light vanilla with butterscotch. Prickly rye with honey. Sour citrus with grapefruit peel. Bitter, dry feel.

Taste– Sweet with vanilla and honey. Hints of chocolate. Altogether quiet mouth feel with a little heat.

Finish– Buttery corn explosion. Medium length. Dries to nothing.

Comment– We expected more from a “Reserve” title. The taste was a highlight but all in all we found CR Reserve to be a drinkable but quiet whisky that’s trying to be bigger than we found it to be.

SWC Rating – 77/100

Contact us at: SpokaneWhiskey@gmail.com