Crown Royal is one of my favorite whiskeys out there next to Jameson and Canadian Club. Straight up, on the rocks or mixed with a splash of tonic or 7Up, Crown Royal is damn smooth and good. Your favorite smiley receiver and mine, Hines Ward, is a huge fan of the whiskey as well and loves to gift it out. He gave the entire Steelers team a bottle of Crown Royal XR after the Steelers won Super Bowl XLIII against the Cardinals. The ‘XR’ stands for Extra Rare – and it truly is rare whisky.
The old Waterloo distillery that made Crown Royal burned down back in ’93. Only a small amount of the whiskey ready for distribution survived that fire – Crown Royal XR. It’s over $100 for a 750mL bottle, so it’s about 4 times the price of a regular batch. A pretty classy gift to give to an entire football team.
Now (according to an email received from Crown Royal’s marketing team), Ward is giving some more XR out after a more recent victory – winning the Mirror Ball Trophy on Dancing with the Stars. As see in the picture, Ward is giving out three XR’s out – one for each judge on DWTS. Let’s hope Carrie Ann likes whiskey… I love the engraving on the bags (check it out below). It truly shows what kind of classy guy Ward is. I don’t know how much XR there is left in the world. But, I hope Ward buys up the last of it for the next season or two in preparation of gifting it out to his teammates once (or twice) again.