Crown Royal Reserve

@victor, your CRR sounds terrific but as you mentioned in your review there are other batches out there which have very little in common with the one you have the pleasure to own. I bought my CRR in Austria last week and it is not open long enough to give a substantial valuation but my batch is considerably inferior to yours - it is weakish and flat and at the moment I would rate it in the low 80's. If different batches would have bottlecodes like most of the distilleries are already have the Whiskieonados could look out for the better batches.

@maltster, yes, I was referencing you and your bottle in Austria in the review. I feel that I have already sampled your bottle, both in Toronto and in the DC area. My reviewed bottle was excellent from the git-go and there has been little shift over time in its flavours over about five months.

It is very much my purpose in doing this review to attempt to call attention to the huge variations possible from batch to batch in many whiskies, and to warn whisky drinkers that the whisky that they thought that they knew from their first taste of it might be a very different whisky the next time around. Having one, two, or ten tastes of any whisky doesn't nail the future of its flavours to the same profile that we have known and experienced.

Excellent and enlightening review - I am quite jealous that your bottle was so much better than mine! Having said that, I do plan on occasionally buying the odd bottle and testing it out to see if any are as good as yours.

@talexander, in this case I got a very good bottle. In some other cases I have gotten the duds. As they say, in this life, sometimes you are the dog, and other times you are the fire hydrant.

I think the aforementioned bottle from Virginia (my bottle) is the fire hydrant version.

A little late to the party but I hope my CCR I recently bought is as good as yours was

@ Victor - I've opened a recently purchased bottle from the local LCBO and this bottle has markings. Using an LED flashlight brings the markings out nicely. Under the right shoulder, above the front label at two o'clock is: L2 299 N4 12:35. I've had a bottle of the "American" version, Special Reserve, and it was outstanding - gifted to me in 2010, year of bottling unknown.

@paddockjudge, too bad! I don't have my CRR bottle anymore to look again for markings. I couldn't find any markings before. I would love to identify the batch to see whether I could find more from the batch from which this reviewed bottle originated. It was a great bottle, and I'll just bet that that bottle is from the same juice Mr. Murray was naming 2012 Canadian Whisky of the year. Who knows for sure whether the stock in my local stores still has some of that batch? My buddy @JeffC bought some Crown Royal Reserve in Virginia just across the river from me that was not remotely in the same league as was this reviewed bottle. I know. I tasted it.

@Victor - WOW,just popped the cork on Drew Mayville's (20 year man at Seagram's/Crown Royal) latest single barrel expression of Sazerac Caribou Crossing Canadian Whisky.

I am convinced that this recent release is not from the same batch, nor the same distillery, as the previous offering from late autumn of 2011 - that expression had a heavy rye nose and palate and was likely from Walkerville or Alberta. This one is slightly less fragrant and is somewhat mellow with the influence of aged corn whisky. I'm tasting this H2H with CR Reserve and I'm drinking the same whisky from two different glasses.

Me thinks that Mr. Mayville has sourced some well balanced barrels of "Crown Royal Reserve". I will set aside a sample of each for future tastings.

Victor, I believe you may find the world class sample of CR Reserve in a bottle of Caribou Crossing.