Made in Manitoba Royal Crown has been named Canada’s Best Whiskey and Canadian Whiskey of the Year in 2022 Canadian Whiskey Awards.
A panel of nine experts awarded the prizes to the brand’s Nobel Winter Wheat collection at the 12th annual event.
“This whiskey won by a landslide, really,” said Davin de Kergommeaux, head judge and founder of the awards.
“It is very exuberant in its flavor. It feels wonderful. A lot of weight in the mouth… but the good thing about this whiskey is that it tastes more like itself. It really is synthesized into a single unit, a whole.”
Crown Royal is distilled on a 360-acre property along the shores of Lake Winnipeg in Gimli, Man.
An aerial view of the Crown Royal Distillery in Gimli, Manitoba.
Featured / Royal Crown
“On behalf of our entire team at the distillery in Gimli and our blending team, and our teams across North America, it is an absolute honor to be named Canadian Whiskey of the Year,” said Stephen Wilson, director of whiskey contracting at CrownRoyal. .
“The Nobel Series has always been an opportunity for our blenders and distillers to really showcase the quality of the whiskey we produce at Crown Royal. So for that to come full circle and for all those people to get the recognition they deserve, I’ll tell you that our team has been in the clouds.”
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In addition to top honors, the Manitoba product also took home Best Blended Whiskey and Sippin’ Whiskey of the Year (multiple markets).
Diageo, the beverage company that owns Crown Royal, also won Distillery of the Year for the Gimli location and Blender of the Year for its Montreal blending lab.
De Kergommeaux says Canada has a lot to be proud of in terms of its whiskeys, which have three “touchstones” but thousands of variations.
“Usually it starts out sweet, like caramel. There’s this hot spice in the middle. Then it ends with an almost bitter pith, like grapefruit, at the end,” said de Kergommeaux, never short of adjectives.
“It really is easy to recognize.”
The Canadian Whiskey Awards has more than two dozen award categories, and other winners included Okanagan Spirits for Craft Distiller of the Year, Odd Society Maple Whiskey for Best New Whiskey, and JP Wiser’s Red Letter 15-Year-Old for Connoisseur Whiskey of the Year ( Domestic).
As for Crown Royal’s Nobel series, Wilson says each year is unique, so this year’s winning Winter Wheat will only be available for a limited time.
“The reaction to Winter Wheat, I haven’t seen anything like it. So right now I would say there are no plans (to extend it), but I don’t want to be the one to say that, because you never know,” Wilson said.
“For now, let’s enjoy it while it’s there. That is what it should be. That’s what it’s meant for.”
Crown Royal is also no stranger to national or international recognition.
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Their Northern Harvest Rye became hard to find in 2016 after being named World Whiskey of the Year in Jim Murray’s annual Whiskey Bible.
“It was crazy,” de Kergommeaux said.
“Here’s a $35 whiskey that’s the best in the world, and it just filled the liquor stores in Canada. I was in New Brunswick at the time, I cleaned liquor stores, I cleaned liquor stores in Ontario, everywhere.”
Northern Harvest Rye won Sippin’ Whiskey of the Year at the 2017 Canadian Whiskey Awards, while the first in the Nobel series, Crown Royal Cornerstone Blend, was also named Canadian Whiskey of the Year by the Whiskey Advocate in 2016.
“We have an amazing team at Gimli, and they are the heart and soul of why Crown Royal is so special,” said Wilson.
Canadian Whiskey Awards
The Canadian Whiskey Awards are the brainchild of author and sommelier Davin de Kergommeaux, who founded the awards in 2009.
“I wanted to start an awards program where we really evaluated whiskeys fairly and honestly, and where the judges were competent to evaluate Canadian whiskey. Not Scotch, not bourbon or other spirits, but true Canadian whiskey experts,” de Kergommeaux said.
“We had like 65 entries the first year. We are going to cross 200 next year. So it has been growing.”
De Kergommeaux says that a panel of ten judges is tasked with blindly testing each submission and giving it a score, with the highest scores taking home the hardware.
After the scores are tabulated, they are sent back to the judges to make sure their answers were entered correctly.
“We’re looking for a whiskey that people have really thought about. And it shows,” de Kergommeaux said.
Reference-globalnews.ca