Crown Royal

Great Review! Thanks for grinning and bearing it when most of us would probably have been foolish enough to stop drinking it (or one of us might have added ginger ale if it were expensive and rare...).

I'll have to watch out for this "Crown Royal" whisky. Sounds dangerous. I'd better be sure not to confuse it with other SPECIFIC whiskies like Johnny Walker, Jim Beam, Jack Daniels...

I agree - there's not much to this whiskey, and one does not get much flavor whatsoever when Crown Royal is used in a cocktail, it's pretty much diluted itself -- it's useful for the getting tipsy part, I suppose - but if that was the purpose, I'd go with great whiskey anyway. Perhaps it's just meant as a rite of passage as a youth and then one moves on, hoping and wanting for bigger, bolder whiskey.

Yes, standard Crown Royal is usually so 'ho-hum' that when I once got some minis from an outlier batch that was surprisingly very good that I made a big point of reviewing them.

connosr.com/crown-royal-whisky-review-7248…

I never do expect that quality from standard Crown Royal, though, but, as I titled that review, "even a blind hog gets an acorn once in a while."

Not to overgeneralize, but all Texans love this stuff.

A quick search at the KGBO has over 20 listings for "Crown Royal". Now, discounting the salted caramel, apple, and (ugh) Northern Harvest Rye, that still leaves a few.

My point was that there is more than one Crown Royal. And some of them are actually good. Even, I, Canada's most jaded Crown Royal disliker, have found at least one expression I liked, and it was in fact a US only distributed product.

This non-review essentially paints CR (and maybe attempts to paint all Canadian whisky, but as a polite Canadian I would not go that far) as bad whisky. It's like reviewing bottom shelf Beam our JD and applying that to all the products in the line.

@Nozinan I hope you aren’t insulting Northern Harvest Rye or else.....I’ll be forced to politely disagree with you while respecting your right to hold a differing opinion. I mean it !

Fair point @Nozinan and this review is /can't be a blanket review for all the Crown Royal expressions, but most of the line is mediocre - I unfortunately had tasted a few of the "flavors" such as apple, and salted caramel ("yuck" on both counts) due to having been at a bachelorette party gone bad -- But, I am with @OdysseusUnbound and must say that the Northern Harvest Rye is decent and not too shabby for $20 US Dollars. I love rye whiskies, and I'm not saying it's super awesome in the way I love Old Potrero, but I will put forth that I think it tastes better than Jack Daniel's Straight Rye served neat. If mixed as a Manhattan, well then it could go either way for me...

@Nozinan, if that was your point, why not just ask which Crown Royal was being reviewed here by the good @mhock66?

Instead, you make sarcastic comments. You call his review a "non-review." And you suggest that instead of giving his honest opinion of a whisky he recent drank, he's trying to paint all Canadian whisky as bad whisky. No, wait—you claim to be too polite to say the thing you said.

WTF, man?

And I see in Connosr's useful "Related Crown Royal Reviews" links above on this very page that plenty of other established Connosr folks have reviewed plain old "Crown Royal" without bothering to explain that it was the basic one that everyone damn well knows you're talking about if you just say "Crown Royal." Did you give all them shit too? Even without clicking to verify, I'm 100% sure you didn't.

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@mhock66, I liked your review and I look forward to seeing more opinions of yours—maybe next time for a whisky you like.

@MadSingleMalt A review of a whisky that is served in a glass with ice, and where the reviewer says "Maybe I should have had it neat" is not what I would consider in the top tier of reviews.

If that is where you set the bar, fine, I have no problem with that. But I think we can do better.

@Nozinan, so you're defending your comments here to our new Connosr friend @mhock66?

Calling someone's first review here a "non-review" is not what I would consider in the top tier of decency.

If that is where you set the bar, fine. But I think we can do better.

@MadSingleMalt

I'm defending Canadian Whisky from the un-called-for denigration it often gets from people who buy a bottom shelf bottle, review it, and imply that it applies to the whole genre.

It's like me trying Bowmore 12 and saying Scotch sucks.

If that's where you set the bar, I'm fine with that, but I think we can do better.

@Nozinan if it were you or another Connosr veteran, I would definitely agree with you. However, it's his first review. I would cut him some slack. My first several reviews on the old site were definitely not up to par, and I have contemplated taking them down. Not that my new ones are much better, but I've come a long way since my first whisky review. Just my opinion though.

@casualtorture I accept your point.

But:

connosr.com/dewars-white-label-whisky-revi…

Do you think it's time for an intervention?

@Nozinan: "I'm defending Canadian Whisky from the un-called-for denigration it often gets from people who buy a bottom shelf bottle, review it, and imply that it applies to the whole genre."

Please point me to the part of @mhock66's review that did any of that.

Actually, unless my eyes (and Ctrl+F) deceive me, the guy didn't even mention that it's Canadian.

@Nozinan: "Do you think it's time for an intervention?"

Because the guy, in the heat of summer, drank & reviewed two whiskies on the rocks that I daresay nearly everyone drinks on the rocks and that were probably intended to be drank on the rocks?

No. I think he's doing just fine.

@Nozinan that does make my eye twitch just a bit.

My review was of a single whiskey - Crown Royal. That is really the only Canadian other than Canadian Club that I have ever tasted. I know nothing of the various expressions in the CR line, as flavored whiskies do not appeal to me. To insinuate that I was making a blanket statement about all Canadian whiskies is erroneous.

As an aside, this isn’t my first review here. I’ve been off the site for several years and just signed up again. Not even sure what my old user name and password were. As I didn’t think much of this particular whiskey I didn’t give much of a review. Had you read my reviews of Ardbeg Alligator or Laphroaig Quarter Cask, your opinion may have been different.

Would it be appropriate to post a popcorn eating gif at this juncture?

@mhock66 - Call it as you see it. All I'd ask for is honesty and consistency on your scoring and reviews; that way I can get to know your likes, dislikes and have a guess at what I might score a similar whisky (if that makes any sense?)

@mhock66, oh please please please make some heads explode and tell us that your old username was Rigmarole!

@Nozinan while you may not agree with my choice of whiskey for review, there is no need to denegrste me for liking Dewar’s White Label. It is literally the first time in my life that I’ve had it and as I said I was pleasantly surprised. Is it my first choice? No Is it something that I want to drink all the time? Also no. But it wasn’t bad. If you look at my partial cabinet, you’ll see that my tastes run well beyond the two reviews I just posted. I’m sorry if I somehow offended your glorious palate by reviewing such peasant whiskies.

@mhock66, it would be fun to dig up who you used to be on here way back when. Despite the fantastic facelift the site got somewhat recently, all the old content is still here. If you're sure you reviewed Ardbeg Alligator under your old guise, maybe it'd be worth skimming those reviews to see if your old name jumps out at you?

There aren't that many reviews to skim over, really:

connosr.com/ardbeg-alligator-whisky-review…

P.S. One welcome feature we got with that facelift was the ability to edit a post, like to fix a typo. Just click that little paper-and-pencil icon below any recent post.

@mhock66, this is quite the conundrum! you've tasted only two Canadian whiskies?! I shall extend an offer to you (and a friend or two) to take you on a tour around the Canadian Flavour Wheel. Should ever we manage to meet, I am fairly certain you would enjoy sipping some of the top shelf stuff from my harvest over the years.

Im in Ontario...and the highway goes both ways...I usually get out of the house a couple of times a year

@mhock66 I have no problem with the choices of whisky that you choose to review, or that you choose to drink. or that you choose to like. That's a matter of personal taste.

Maybe I'm a purist, but I like the reviews I read to provide something to reward me for the time I take to read them.

I don't find a review, where you say you should have tried it another way and proceed to then review it, useful. In general, reviews of spirits with stuff added (soda, gingerale, ice, whatever) are not helpful to give an understanding of the underlying flavour profile of the spirit in question.

The intervention I was alluding to was not your choice of Dewars White Label, but of another review of something with ice in it.

If you wish to review your whiskies adulterated, I can't stop you, but I won't read them.

@paddockjudge Sipping from your top shelf is an option? Uhm, I totally hate Canadian whisky. Change my mind.

@OdysseusUnbound, top shelf sampling is simple: show up at one of our events. We've yet to have a cover charge and nobody has gone missing...well, there was that one time, but we don't talk about it.

@paddockjudge I wanna come too! :)

@RikS, excellent!...you can pick up your "Dram of Desire" vatting at the same time (Laphroaig 18, Macallan Cask Strength, Glenlivet Nadurra 16 YO, 10 % H2O, absolutely delicious!).