Message 14032 of 39188 in General Discussion

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> Ya, Crown Royal is a very good rye...
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Note:

Crown Royal is not a Rye. It's a Blended Canadian Whisky, and while many of 
the Canadian Whiskies contain rye, most of them do not contain the 51% minimum 
required to meet the requirements to be called a "rye", and none of them 
conform to the processing/storage requirements.

The whole concept of refering to Canadian Whisky as "rye" started during 
prohibition when the American distilleries were shut down, and so too was the 
supply of true Rye Whiskey. Before prohibition, "rye" was the most common form 
of whiskey that was used, either straight, or in cocktails and mixed drinks. 
This meant that around the world, if somebody went into a bar and either asked 
for "Rye", or for a cocktail (like a Manhattan) which would normally be made 
with rye, they would instead substitute Canadian Whisky.

To this day, many people continue to mistakenly refer to Canadian Whisky as 
"Rye".

I don't know the specific mash recipe that Crown Royal uses, but even if it 
were to meet the 51% rye requirement, it would still not be a rye whiskey 
since it is a "blended" whiskey. In the same way that a blended scotch cannot 
be called a "single malt".

I realize that I might just be splitting hairs for some of you, but I think it 
is important for all of us to have a certain level of knowledge and 
understanding about the products we discuss so that we don't haphazardly loose 
track of things. There was a time in Britain when any spirit was generically 
referred to as "brandy", and we definately don't want to go there :->

-Robert
 www.DrinkBoy.com