Last Saturday I was talking to my friend DP (from the Whiskey Detectives blog) at a bourbon cocktail class that we both attended. After it was finished we stood around looking at the wide selection the venue offers for sale when the conversation got around to those whiskies that we know we should have tried, but for some reason never had.
It got me to thinking. There are strange, semi-random swaths of the whisky shelf that I have—for one reason or another—avoided. And there is really no rhyme or reason to it. Some I remember hearing bad things about. Some are styles I’ve historically been wary of. Some my latent hipsterness rejects, seemingly, just because of their popularity.
I promise I’m not some hipster A-hole, but I will admit to having minor hipsterish tendencies such as a the one where I tend to not trust anything that seems too popular. Or maybe that’s just snobbishness. In any case, it’s something I need to work on.
So in the spirit of trying something that I’d passed over every single time I went to a liquor store solely because it was one of the best selling whiskies to come out of North America, I present:
Crown Royal
Purchase Info: $3.99 for a 50mL at Hayward Bait and Bottle Shoppe, Hayward, WI
Details: 40% ABV
Nose: Brown sugar, pencil shavings, ripe peaches
Mouth: Nice mouthfeel, thicker than I expected. #2 pencils (I chewed on the yellow ones a lot). Hints of maple sugar. Some mint as it moves back.
Finish: Gentle, but with enough heat to let you know you’re drinking whisky. Lingering sweet cereal.
Thoughts: It’s really a shame I’d passed this over for so long. It’s got a nice sweet mouthfeel that is balanced by just enough woody bitterness. It’d be a good movie watching whisky as it’s interesting enough to add enjoyment, but gentle enough to not distract you from the show. I think a full-sized bottle needs to sit on the Canadian Shelf.