Nearly a decade ago, a reserve batch of Canada’s Crown Royal whisky struck awe in the hearts of critics. “To say this is a masterpiece is barely doing it justice,” wrote the British reviewer Jim Murray, adding that the company’s upmarket offering took rye to “new heights of beauty and complexity”.
But earlier this week, holding a hulking glass bottle in front of a gaggle of cameras, Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, slowly poured the hazel liquid on to the ground.
“This is what I think of Crown Royal,” he said, standing defiantly next to the puddle. He said the company’s owners were “a few fries short of a Happy Meal” and “dumb as a bag of hammers”.
For months, staff at liquor stores across Canada have dutifully kept American wines and spirits off the shelves, retaliation for a trade war provoked by Donald Trump. Sales of US brands have cratered and executives have fretted over the “significant headwinds” from the boycotts which have seen millions of dollars in sales slip away.
This week, the multinational owners of Crown Royal provoked the wrath of Ford – head of Canada’s most economically powerful province – when they announced plans to shutter its plant in Ontario and move operations to the US.
Ford, who has emerged as one of Canada’s fiercest critics of US protectionism, said the planned move was a betrayal and called on others to dump the product in protest.
“They’re sitting around, just absolutely as smug as they come … they’re hurting Ontario residents,” Ford said of the company’s executives. “A message to the CEO in France: you hurt my people, I’m gonna hurt you. You’re gonna feel the pain in February when these people don’t have a pay cheque.”
The Canadian whisky, first introduced 86 years ago to mark a visit by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, has long stressed its roots in both domestic and international advertising. Sold in a distinct purple cloth bag with gold stitching, the drink is made with Canadian grains and water from Manitoba’s Lake Winnipeg. While it was initially only available in Canada, a decision to sell it south of the border in the 1960s has made it the top-selling Canadian whisky in the US.
Once part of the Seagram empire, the brand was acquired in 2001 by Diageo, the London-based multinational company, when the Canadian beverage and entertainment conglomerate collapsed.
Its Northern Harvest Rye was named the 2016 World Whisky of the Year, the first time a Canadian whisky had ever received the honour.
Production has remained in Canada for decades, but last week, Diageo said it would shift its bottling operations to the US in February. The move will cost 200 jobs but has taken on outsized political importance amid the backdrop of trade war between Canada and the US.
A spokesperson for Diageo said the company’s “focus at this time remains on their commitment to Canada”, adding: “Crown Royal will continue to be mashed, distilled, and aged in Canada, just as it has been since 1939.”
Still, the decision has faced strong criticism from Ontario provincial lawmakers. Lisa Gretzky, a New Democratic party member, says the government should pull the whisky from provincial liquor stores – something Ford has said is possible.
“We’re not going to stand by and let you just try and squeeze a little more money out for those wealthy shareholders at the risk of 200 people in our community,” she told local media.
Canada is the largest importer of US wine and the second largest export market for US spirits, with sales totalling $221m last year, according to the US Distilled Spirits Council.
According to Brown-Forman, the parent company of Jack Daniel’s, sales to Canada dropped 62% during the latest fiscal quarter compared with last year. The company’s chief finance officer said the “significant headwinds” in global trade, including Canada’s boycott, had “had a significant impact on our first quarter of fiscal 2026, which will impact our full fiscal year results”.
In recent weeks, Canada has made conciliatory gestures to the US in an attempt to move past the trade impasse. Mark Carney said his government would drop retaliatory tariffs against the US in order to help the two countries reach a trade deal.
But Canada’s provinces appear resistant to caving on the liquor boycott.
Alberta and Saskatchewan lifted moratoriums on buying and selling US liquor in June and remain the only two provinces which stock US drinks.
Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island said they have no plans to bring wine and spirits back until US tariffs are dropped.
“It’s still going to be banned until they cut the tariffs, or we make a deal with them,” said Ford. “It’s not coming on our shelves.”