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A couple of weeks ago, I tagged along on a small media tour of the Crown Royal distillery, located just outside Gimli. The event was held in conjunction with the arrival of the Crown Royal Rig, a purple 18-wheeled marketing machine with two massive faux barrels loaded on the back.
The Crown Royal Rig is seen parked at True North Square prior to the March 25 Winnipeg Jets game against the Washington Capitals. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Free Press)
This was my second visit to the Crown Royal distillery, and both times when I told folks where I’d been I was asked the same question: why doesn’t Crown Royal offer public tours?
The quick answer: the site is essentially a factory — and a busy one. The facility operates 24 hours a day for 11 months out of the year; every day 8-10 trucks arrive, loaded down with grain or corn, and depart full of spent grain to be used as animal feed. For our tour we were provided safety vests and glasses as well as ear plugs — standard garb for the 80 or so staff on site.
The Crown Royal distillery near Gimli. (Ben Sigurdson / Free Press)
The Crown Royal distillery is a seven-storey structure filled with grain-grinding machines, vast fermentation rooms and incredibly tall stills. The heavy-duty machinery and deafening whirring, buzzing and clanking sounds are right out of a David Lynch film, while the control room has a Springfield nuclear power plant feel to it, albeit more modernized (and minus a sleepy Homer Simpson).
The 56 on-site warehouses hold a staggering 1.7 million barrels where the whisky ages. They’re generally quieter than the distillery proper, but can be just as dangerous. Unless the warehouse doors are left open for some time, the air in the buildings can get so heavy with evaporated whisky that a visitor could easily pass out.
Another facility sees barrels emptied, filled and shuffled around by folks on fast-moving forklifts. The whisky that’s finished aging in barrels is transferred to a holding tank before being pumped into rail tank cars that make their way to Amherstburg, Ont. for blending and bottling. (I assume the iconic purple velvet bag gets added there.)
Some of Crown Royal’s 80 distillery workers pose in front of the Crown Royal rig in Gimli. (Ben Sigurdson / Free Press)
I don’t even have photos of most of the good stuff. Electronics aren’t allowed on the tour, as anything that’s potentially combustible is considered a hazard given the alcohol vapours present in some areas. So no phones or even watches.
We did a small tasting of five component distillates that go into the classic Crown Royal De Luxe, both before and after aging in barrel, with ambassador Stephen Wilson in the facility’s meeting room. (Ben Sigurdson / Free Press)
So while the facility just isn’t conducive to tourist visits, it feels like there’s a big missed opportunity here to promote Crown Royal’s Manitoba roots — even though it’s owned by British drinks giant Diageo, the “Buy Canadian” spirit is running quite hot.
An idea: set up a cozy seasonal tasting room along one of Gimli’s main drags where folks can sample whiskies, try cocktails and learn about the storied facility where all the world’s Crown Royal is produced? Mockup a miniature still, let visitors touch and taste the grain, sell merch and so on.
Maybe the suits back at the British head office are too far removed to see the potential. But they also own Guinness, one of the most iconic Irish beer brands in the world, and that brewery’s visitor experience is quite impressive.
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