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Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye Review

Crown Royal's Northern Harvest Rye creates an approachable style from a 90% rye mash that avoids the classic pitfalls of rye whisky. While it gained fame from Jim Murray's "best whisky" award, this review explores whether it lives up to that lofty praise.

OVERALL RATING

7
$37
  • Phil Dwyer is a freelance whisky writer and consultant with over a decade of experience in whisky retail and online whisky education. Best known for hosting Whisky Wednesday on YouTube, he is dedicated to making whisky accessible and enjoyable by cutting through jargon and complexity.
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Tasting Notes

About:

Created from a 90% rye mash, this whisky should be quite polarising. Somehow, Crown Royal has created an extremely welcoming and approachable style of classic rye that doesn’t fall into a lot of the classic traps that rye can offer people.

This particular version of the Crown Royal line got a lot of attention when Jim Murray crowned it his favourite whisky in the world nearly a decade ago, but does it stand up to that rather intense and somewhat melodramatic review.
Appearance:
Golden
Nose:
Peachy and bright with a lot of decent rye spices (nutmeg and cinnamon), along with some very cereal driven notes of toasted grain and oaky, caramel barrel influence. A very heavy note of mandarin/orange with this when it’s left out for a while.
Palate:
Decently texture and very prominent with these orange notes at the start again. You get some nice cereal notes again, toasted oats and a little touch of rye bread flour. It does become a lot thinner the longer you hold it on your palate which is something I don’t think I’ve ever experienced before.

It has decent spiciness as it moves around the palate, but it’s as spicy and present as any classic rye whisky.
Finish:
In a way that I like, the finish comes across as very green. It’s grain driven, herbaceous, reminds me of basil and sage. The finish is decently long for something that I imagine is mostly below ten year old liquid. Little hints of barrel spice and green rye spices that rounds off in a little barrel dryness.
Comments:
This is is perfectly good, affordable rye whisky. It has decent sweet notes that balances out with classic rye spices. Do I think it would ever get a best whisky in the world award? Not for me, personally, but then again, the Murray award is a personal award and not a world aligning agreement. Despite what auctions sites might dictate to you.

I don’t think is better than other classic rye whiskies that are available across the world. Bottles from other Canadian distilleries, Sazerac, Rittenhouse, even some English and Danish rye whiskies that are in the world now have a bigger announcement and charisma than this bottle.

Despite my above comments, that doesn’t make this bad, but it’s a good, affordable product to have in the house or bar.

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.

Phil Dwyer

Phil Dwyer is a freelance whisky writer and consultant. With a decade of experience in whisky retail and nearly as long running Whisky Wednesday on YouTube, Phil is dedicated to sharing his knowledge and enthusiasm with fellow whisky lovers. His goal is to make whisky accessible and enjoyable, dispelling the jargon and complexity that can sometimes surround the spirit. In addition to his online presence, Phil managed The Whisky Shop Manchester, where he curated an impressive selection of some of the finest drams available.

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