Crown Royal Blender's Select

For those who fancy they don't like Canadian whisky, this bottling is unlikely to change your mind. For the rest who enjoy it but feel it has more to offer, this one just might be worth exploring.

On the nose it is distinctly Canadian but with greater emphasis on spicy oak and grain. Vanilla is there but so too is ginger and polished wood. Pine forest. Hint of apple cider. Pretty tightly-woven aroma which doesn't stray from the Crown blueprint but is far more robust.

In the mouth I get a lot of prickly spices. The sweetness is subdued with hard, heavy grains moving to oak at the back of the tongue. The whisky finishes long with a sweet-sour mix of oak and grains which lingers all over the mouth.

Again, this is not a whisky which tries to make you forget its provenance. It is no wannabe bourbon. It does what Canadian whisky does, only more vigourously. Overall it's not something I would go out of my way to get, but it's a decent sipper and a superb base for premium cocktails.

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