Crown royal?

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nevada

Crown royal?

Post by nevada »

Anyone know the recipe for crown?
Uncle Jesse
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hmm

Post by Uncle Jesse »

Crown Royal is a rye whiskey and if I'm not mistaken it's a blend?

Rye whiskey is easy but figuring out the exact grainbill would take time.

It wouldn't take much to make a rye whiskey which exceeded the quality of any of the common "off the shelf" canadian whiskies.
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Post by grainhopper »

I tasted crown for the 1st time after startingthis hobby, and I was very dissappointed. Cant believe people pay that much for the crap.
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Post by byacey »

They especially push the stuff around Christmas time. Having grown up around the stuff, I have little interest in Rye Whiskies. A good Rum is what I enjoy, Mount Gay from Barbados is my favorite. Maybe it's because I'm not a true connoiseur, but Canadian Club, Crown Royal, Alberta Springs, Golden Wedding, Four Roses, and all the other Canadian Whiskies all taste like the same stuff to me, and not very good stuff either.

First time I tasted Bourbon, I braced myself for the "Rye Blech!!" taste, and was pleasantly surprised to find it didn't taste bad at all. I figure if you're going to drink alcohol, it may as well be pleasant to the taste, not something you have to pole-vault past your tongue into the throat to be able to tolerate it.
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Post by Aidas »

It's my understanding that very few canadian whiskeys are still rye whiskeys. They've moved on to cheaper grains.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Crown is one of the few that could still be called a rye, i.e. that it has at least 50+1% rye.

I've made a number of rye whiskeys -- mostly by playing around with the UJSM method, though I made a couple of mashes. Rye is good.

As UJ said, you can make a better rye whiskey that you can buy. My very first tries were already better than storebought.

I would suggest you start with a 51% rye, 24 percent corn and 25 percent barley. Thus you can call it a rye. I've made this, and it was very nice. I haven't had Crown in ages, so I can't compare.

BTW, bourbon is corn-based, not rye-blech! based... :)

Aidas
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Post by byacey »

Aidas wrote:
BTW, bourbon is corn-based, not rye-blech! based... :)

Aidas
Right you are, I was just talking whisky in general. When I was a kid, rye whiskey was all we knew; totally unaware that there were other whiskies. In fact it was common to use the words Rye and Whisky interchageably.

Perhaps I'll have to try and produce some of my own and see what all the fuss is about. Maybe I'm missing something here...

I see you're from Lithuania; What do local people there usually use to make Samohan?
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Post by Rocky_Creek »

Canadian whisky is fermented and distilled as separate types and then mixed. Maybe a almost all corn, an almost all rye and maybe a malt. Then they are blended. Most have very little rye in them now days and probably do not meet any standards to be called rye. They use to have more rye, and that impression still exist.
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Post by Aidas »

byacey wrote:
I see you're from Lithuania; What do local people there usually use to make Samohan?
Traditional is rye. Newfangled (or more for illegal selling) is wheat-rye hybrid. Not a blend of the two, but a single grain that was made by interbreeding the two. It doesn't have as much flavor as rye, but it has a higher potential sugar than rye. It ends up giving a sharp throaty taste (for lack of a better description) that isn't to my taste.

Traditional rye is excellent. However, there is no tradition of ageing on oal.

We call it "naminuke" (just say it phonetically -- lithuanian's a phonetic language, so in english it would "spell" like this - num in ookey (the double oo as in cook)). That simply means "little (or nice) homemade stuff"

Aidas
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terryt

Post by terryt »

I just came across this post and had to tell you guys the little I know about Crown Royal. My ex's father worked at Seagram's, in a little town in Canada (gimli). They must have had other distilleries in Canada, also, since they were/are nation wide. Anyway, he was one of the people there that would blend CR. This was pretty amazing since he didn't drink. When he was blending, he would go by how the mixture smelled, since he would never taste the stuff. He would blend about 5 or 7 types of rye whisky to make CR. It was also aged for about 7 years, maybe longer. He had a really good nose for this and I remember him once telling us that he thought the Tequila we were drinking was fusel oil. Since he used to blend CR, we all thought he was some kind of god. To him, Tequila was real crap.
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uh

Post by Uncle Jesse »

terryt wrote:I just came across this post and had to tell you guys the little I know about Crown Royal. My ex's father worked at Seagram's, in a little town in Canada (gimli). They must have had other distilleries in Canada, also, since they were/are nation wide. Anyway, he was one of the people there that would blend CR. This was pretty amazing since he didn't drink. When he was blending, he would go by how the mixture smelled, since he would never taste the stuff. He would blend about 5 or 7 types of rye whisky to make CR. It was also aged for about 7 years, maybe longer. He had a really good nose for this and I remember him once telling us that he thought the Tequila we were drinking was fusel oil. Since he used to blend CR, we all thought he was some kind of god. To him, Tequila was real crap.
which tequila? Cuervo gold? Certainly not one of the good ones.
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Post by theholymackerel »

I have an awsome sence of smell and I know there is no way I could make proper cuts based on smell alone (without tastin' the distillate).

I believe that you were told that story terryt, but not that it's true. (I suspect yer ex's father was havin' fun with ya 'cause ya payed attention to his stories.)

No way segrams would have someone blendin' that wouldn't taste it.

Also the fusil oil comment about tequilla is weird. Fusil oils are tails. I've smelled a hint of fusils in Cuervo, but any good 100% agave tequilla will have NO tails in it. Heads are a different story. Most of the agave flavor come over early in the run near the middle and end of the heads. So some heads are typical in tequilla, but fusil oils no.

Fusil oils are more likely in a whiskey where the flavor comes over in the early tails.







I wish ya luck.
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Post by pintoshine »

You can approximate CR very well by oak aging refluxed alcohol. It really doesn't have much grain flavor. It has a lot of patent still liquor in it.
They age it in used bourbon barrels. I know these are usually ones from Heaven Hill. Kevin Cooperage supplies them and randy keeps me up to date on who is buying what. and Seagrams buys many truckloads of Heaven Hills barrels. It would be safe to assume they use them for CR.
So lightly oaked lightly refluxed grain will do it.
DWWG is a good candidate for CR. It has a lot of mild grain flavor even on a singling through a pot still. The important thing is the time it takes to mature to the triple mixture of H2O, ETOH and H-ETOH-OH. I am beginning to find it takes about 6 months for this combination. Unfortunately it makes it taste like commercial etoh.
terryt

Post by terryt »

hello UJ and THM - The Tequila he was talking about was (I think) Potters. And I agree, it would definetly be some kind of travesty to call Cuervo Gold fusel oil.

As for blending without tasting, I don't know for sure 100%, so maybe its not possible, but I never heard him mention tasting. I don't ever remember him mentioning that he tasted it. This was a really quiet person, didn't drink at all, didn't brag, hardly even talked. Very smart guy, haven't seen him since I took up this new hobby. There's a few questions I would have if I were to see him again.
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Post by Aidas »

terryt wrote:And I agree, it would definetly be some kind of travesty to call Cuervo Gold fusel oil.
Actually, I think he was doing just that... :)

When I think of premium tequilas, I think of Patron. Haven't had it in ages (maybe 10 years), but I still remember it as being worthy of a snifter rather than a shot glass...

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ack

Post by Uncle Jesse »

I can't drink Cuervo unless it's the Tradicional or the Reserva de la Familia. The others give me a headache.

I really like Patron, Herradura is good. The Sauza Conmemorativo is good in my estimation for a cheaper tequila. I prefer the white tequilas to the gold ones personally though.
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Post by zymos »

For cheap tequila- check out the Sauza Hornitos. 100% Agave, for not a whole lot more $$ than Cuervo. It's a reposado, not really a brandy- snifter-sipping type, but great in Margaritas.

I think I saw an ad for other styles in the "Hornitos" line too, like an anejo, but haven't seen it around here.
Cazedero is another cheap %100 agave one that is pretty decent.

I love those premium tequilas, but are they ever pricey!!
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Post by goinbroke2 »

This is interesting because I am in Canada and only drink Canadian whisky. I've tried American like johnny walker and jim beam and thought they were horrible, harsh tasting stuff. (why everyone around here says we sell so much to the Americans is because ours is better)
But from what I'm hearing, Canadian is more corn than rye. Perhaps I like corn likker more than rye? And yes we use "rye" and "whisky" interchageably.
Funny thing is though, unless I tasted them back to back, I probably couldn't tell CR from golden wedding or any other.
(I buy what's cheapest at the time)
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hmm

Post by Uncle Jesse »

If you judge American whiskeys by Jim Beam then you're being pretty unfair. I don't judge Canadian whiskeys by Crown Royal that's for sure.

Johnny Walker is a blended scotch, a product of Scotland.
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Post by goinbroke2 »

Certainly don't mean to offend, what would you say is a good example for me to buy and try? Maybe I'll get one of those "testers".

I bought a bottle of gin once and after smelling it couldn't even take a drink. It was like trying to drink aftershave or perfume.

Perhaps a blended American whisky?
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hmm

Post by Uncle Jesse »

well, if you don't like corn based whiskeys then you won't like them :) there's plenty of good Bourbon and Tennessee whiskeys out there. I like George Dickel for an inexpensive Tennessee.
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Re: Crown royal?

Post by jrickard »

I'm trying to find the particulars myself.

Almost all Canadian whiskey is predominantly corn alcohol created in the satanic Coffey Patent still. About a tank car of this is blended with a couple of barrels of real whiskey made in pot stills from grain. Crown Royal appears to be a whisky of rye and wheat, diluted into the tankcar full of corn ethanol.

Wheat is a fascinating component largely ignored by most whiskey makers. But it is a significant component of both Maker's Mark and Crown Royal, two of the better blendeds to my way of thinking. Maker Mark uses 14% wheat and I'm trying to find out the actual level of wheat used in Crown Royal.

It is ABSOLUTELY possible that the gentleman was making cuts by smell alone. The most famous Cognac blending house in the world makes ALL their selections and their blends by smell alone and you will never see one of these masters put a drop to their lips. Indeed, the average human has a bout 9000 tastebuds and about 300,000 olfactory cells. The olfactories are wired more directly into the brain. Your sense of smell is much more delicate than your sense of taste, and indeed, what most people discern as taste is largely the smell component. Hold your nose and try a sip. In any event, many master distillers use smell to make all discisions of production, and rarely sip before the end of the day.

Jack Rickard
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