Crown Royal Deluxe is the whisky that wears a crown and a purple velvet bag, and it earned both honestly. The blend was created by Samuel Bronfman of Seagram's in 1939 as a gift for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth during their royal tour of Canada — the first visit of a reigning monarch to the dominion. The bag and the faceted bottle were designed to evoke the royal occasion, and more than eighty years later they remain unchanged.
The whisky itself is distilled at the Gimli plant on the western shore of Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, where prairie corn, rye and barley are mashed, fermented and distilled into a library of component whiskies. Deluxe is a blend of around fifty of those whiskies, column-distilled and matured separately before being married together. The result is built for approachability rather than intensity — a whisky designed to be poured generously and drunk without ceremony.
On the nose it offers the soft vanilla and caramel signature of Canadian blended whisky, with a lift of orchard fruit and just enough rye perfume to keep it honest. The palate is where Deluxe does its work: silken, sweet, uncomplicated, with baked pear and cinnamon riding on a cushion of corn. The finish is short but clean, leaving vanilla and a trace of pepper behind.
This is not a whisky for the contemplative dram — it is a whisky for highballs, for rye and ginger, for long evenings where the conversation matters more than the pour. Judged on its own terms, it is exactly what it set out to be in 1939: a soft, generous Canadian blend fit for a king and priced for the rest of us.
