History:

The production of Crown Royal began in 1939 coincident with the first Royal Tour of Canada by reigning monarch King George VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth. To mark this historic occasion, Samuel Bronfman, President of the Seagram Company, decided to create a quality whisky to be packaged in a crown-shaped bottle and dressed in a distinctive royal purple bag. Like the packaging, the name chosen for the product was intended to reflect the quality of the spirit, a marketing concept that quickly caught consumer attention. It was available only in Canada until 1964.

Today, Crown Royal is produced solely at the Crown Royal distillery at Gimli, on the shores of Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Previously, it was produced in Waterloo, Ontario, prior to the closure in 1992 of the Waterloo plant. Daily production of Crown Royal uses 10,000 bushels of grain and requires 750,000 imperial gallons (3,400,000 L; 900,000 US gal) of water. The whisky produced at the Manitoba distillery is stored in 2 million barrels, stored in 46 warehouses, over 5 acres (2 ha) of land. The whisky is then blended and bottled in Amherstburg, Ontario. In January, 2007, production of Crown Royal was nearly interrupted as a result of a labour dispute at the Gimli distillery. Fifty-two of the 53 workers at the Manitoba distillery, members of United Food and Commercial Workers Canada Local 200D, voted on January 23 to strike as soon as February 1. However, subsequent negotiations resulted in approval by nearly 75 percent of the workers, the night before the strike deadline, of a new three-year contract.