Crown Royal has a proud history in Canada, created the year King George VI and Queen Elizabeth first visited Canada. The occasion is the stuff of Canadian legend. To mark the 75th anniversary of that visit in 2014, Crown Royal released this celebratory whisky. As with many blended whiskies all over the world, it is difficult to find specific information about what the exact mixture is, but rumor has it that of the 50 or so different whiskies Crown Royal has to draw from, there is a greater amount from their Coffey still rye and created by Master Blender Andrew Mackay. Along with being very popular in Canada, Crown Royal is the best selling Canadian whisky in the US market. This Crown Royal Monarch, like all royalty, comes with a golden crown.
Lot No. 40
The original Lot No. 40 was released by Corby Distributors in the late 90s under the Canada Whisky Guild series but discontinued it a few years after the turn of the century. Because of the small window of release and amount produced, bottles of it became rare and highly sought after. The brand was reintroduced in 2012 as a premium rye and has continued ever since to great acclaim. Unlike some Canadian whiskies called ryes, Lot 40 is made of 90% rye and 10% malted rye. Nothing that isn’t rye, in other words! Lot No. 40 supposedly refers to a plot of land in Ontario that was the home of Joshua Booth, a Canadian pioneer and politician, and an ancestor of one of Hiram Walker’s distillers. Recently, Hiram Walker has released a cask strength Lot No. 40, which quickly sold out its initial first run.
OOLA Three Shores
OOLA was founded in 2010 by owner and master distiller Kirby Kallas-Lewis in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. They remain small but have won several awards for their various gins and vodkas. They also produce whiskey and their Whiskey Discourse series is designed to combine different whiskies to see how they interact under different influences. Other entries experiment with smoke and cask finishes. OOLA Three Shores is included in our All-Canada World Whisky Day by reason that it is made up of one part OOLA Waitsburg Bourbon, one part unknown scotch from the Highland region, and one part Canadian rye. So part of it’s still Canadian! They are sourced separately but aged together for at least a year in American Oak.