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Review: Crown Royal Whisky Lemonade

Crown Royal's ready-to-drink offerings include whisky & cola, Washington apple, peach tea, and this smartly packaged whisky and lemonade.

OVERALL RATING

6
$14.99
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Crown Royal Whisky Lemonade

Tasting Notes

About:

Age time, vessel, and mash bill not indicated. 7% ABV, SRP $14.99/four pack of 12 ounce cans.
Appearance:
Pale yellow with a slight cloudiness. Slow bubbles.
Nose:
Poured into a tasting glass, this has aromas of Meyer lemon zest, raw oatmeal, lemon candy, and sea salt. It smells faintly metallic.
Palate:
I was surprised and pleased to find this was a lightly sparkling beverage. The bubbles add texture and lift to a cocktail that can be rather cloying. And not cloying is great descriptor of this beverage. I expect this cocktail to verge on saccharine, with an overwhelming puckery-ness to balance out the sugar. This is not that. This tastes more like lemon tea than lemonade, with very little acidity on the palate. This indicates to me that there’s no lemon juice here, just lemon flavor. I guess when life gives you lemon flavor, just call it lemonade. On the whiskey side, there’s more action. The Crown Royal comes through with its signature smooth, sweet-grain taste of freshly baked biscuits. This saves the drink: it tastes like there’s whiskey in it and that whiskey is delicious. For the best experience, I suggest breaking out the cutting board (sorry, no prep-saving here) and adding a lemon wedge. I think the lemon flavor is a bit overdone without the corresponding acidity.
Finish:
Comments:
This drink could be better balanced with some fresh lemon juice and a lot of fun with muddled mint leaves or a grenadine float. But as the complexity of my proposed methods for fixing this increases, I’m left wondering what the point is of canning such a basic cocktail. Worth the money? Probably not. I’d rather buy a bottle of Crown Royal to pair with lemonade of my choosing that’s as gourmet as my budget and time allows. Fortunately, what it lacks in lemonade taste it makes up for in whisky flavor and expertly controlled sweetness level.

Editor’s Note: This whiskey was either bought as a sample by The Whiskey Wash or provided to us as a review sample by the party behind it. Per our editorial policies, this in no way influenced the outcome of this review.

Suzanne Bayard

Suzanne Bayard struck out to the West Coast with her now husband almost a decade ago to explore the intersection of wine and policy in its world-class wine regions. She manages a Portland, OR bottle shop by day as the wine buyer and newsletter editor. She is also the Director of the Deep Roots Coalition, an organization of 30 Willamette Valley wineries that educate on and promote dry farming and sustainable practices. She joined the Whiskey Wash to explore two other passions: writing and whiskey.

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