Pittsburgh Steelers Hines Ward continues to give with Crown.

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.