Ontario's premier says he's pulling one of Canada's best-selling whiskies from store shelves over alleged plans to move production to Alabama. Doug Ford said this week he is "100%" ready to banish Crown Royal from shelves run by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, telling rye fans to "stock up" as his dispute with the brand's owner, Diageo, escalates, per the Guardian. The clash began in September, when Diageo announced it would close its Ontario bottling plant and shift operations to the US, cutting roughly 200 jobs. Ford responded then by theatrically dumping a bottle of Crown Royal and calling the company's leaders as "dumb as a bag of hammers."
Diageo, which bought Crown Royal in 2001 after the collapse of Seagram, says the iconic whisky will remain fundamentally Canadian: mashed, distilled, and aged in the country as it has been since 1939, with all product sold outside the US bottled there as well. But Ford dismissed the firm's assurances as "a bunch of BS," insisting Diageo is quietly planning to move all production of Crown Royal—made using Canadian grains and water from Manitoba's Lake Winnipeg—to a new facility in Alabama.
"Mark my words, it's going to Alabama," he said this week, noting the company also "pulled the carpet out from underneath us" in abandoning a promised $175 million carbon-neutral distillery in Ontario, which would've provided 100 jobs. "The message to everyone else; don't try to hurt Ontario, especially if we're your No. 1 customer—you'll be held accountable," Ford added, noting Crown Royal will disappear from shelves as soon as the Ontario bottling plant closes next month. He did not follow through on earlier threats to remove other Diageo brands, including Guinness and Smirnoff, but noted that could still happen, per Global News.
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