Coin’s, country and cold whisky!

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Coins Sports Bar in Kenosha was hoppin’ on Friday the 13th! This was their 2nd MRL Party… they wanted us back because it was so much fun the first time! Michael Scott, country singer from Nashville, TN was in town and serenading us with classic country, southern rock, country rock and keeping the party going. He rocked the Mount Royal Light tee later on in the night!

We had 3 more mirror winners by the end of the night. They left as happy campers, not only because they won an extra prize but because they were drinking Mount Royal Light drinks and shots! Hopefully the pictures give you a taste of our fun night!

Thank you to Mark and the rest of the Coin’s staff for hosting, Michael Scott for the fantastic music, Diane Carlin for some great photos and to Aras Promotions!

July Drink of the Month: Whisky Lemonade

WHISKY LEMONADE – July 2012

Have you tried this one yet? Cool off with this easy-to-mix drink in this HOT July weather! This drink recipe was submitted by Riley M. in the recipe contest a few months ago. You only need 3 ingredients… Super easy and super delicious! 

“Start with a shot (or two if you’re feeling lucky) of Mount Royal Light, then add your favorite light lemonade. My favorite is Minute Maid Light in the can. This way it is really portable. I finish off the drink with a squeeze of lemon and a lemon wedge for the edge of the glass. Add ice if you would like! This makes for a great summer drink and won’t make you feel super full like how you can feel when you are drinking beer. This also makes for a great pool-side drink!” -Riley M.

Party Hardy!

Friday was our 2nd Mount Royal Light Party! BuB’s Irish Pub in Germantown, Wisconsin offered to host it and I couldn’t have been happier! The music was blasting thanks to DJ Peace, drinks were flowing thanks to the wonderful bartenders and Mount Royal Light girls and smiles were everywhere 🙂

If you bought a Mount Royal Light mixer or a Mount Royal Light shot from 10 p.m.-12 a.m. you received raffle tickets, and at midnight I raffled off 3 Mount Royal Light mirrors. Three lucky guys were the winners and they were stoked to bring home their prizes. Everyone was loving the MRL T-shirts and swag and showing it off for the camera!

Thank you to everyone who came out!

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Zoo Be Zoo Be Zoo, the Winner is YOU!

Say “Mount Royal Light Whiskyyyyyyyy!”

YAY! Congratulations to Hillary from Pewaukee on winning the Zoo Pass giveaway drawing!

Hillary has agreed to be a guest blogger for a future Mount Royal Light blog post where she’ll tell us all about her trip to the Milwaukee County Zoo on Mount Royal Light!

Enjoy, Hillary!

A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who entered this giveaway! Your support of Mount Royal Light is crazy amazing and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it! There are plenty more prizes and contests to come so stay tuned. I even heard that there are more Mount Royal Light mirrors on their way… just might have to do another Mirror Contest!!

10 Reasons Why You Should Enter to Win A Zoo Pass

1. The dinos are back! The amazing Adventure Dinosaur exhibit is back until September 3rd 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $2.50 per person, after regular zoo admission… and if you win the zoo pass from Mount Royal Light then it’s $2.50, after FREE admission!
2. Njeri, Kiume and Hubert are growing up! The three African lion cubs were born July 2011 and are growing fast, enter to win the zoo pass so you can see them before they’re like Simba and Nala at the end of The Lion King!
3. Feed the Gentle Giants! At the Miller Brewing Company Giraffe Experience, visitors are able to feed the “gentle giants” every day of the week from a 6-foot high platform!
4. Be cool with the polar bears! The 65,000-gallon freshwater pool is home to the polar bears in Milwaukee and includes three windows for the public to view the polar bears underwater.
5. Ride the Choo-Choo! The train that runs through the zoo was my favorite as a kid! The Zoofari Express runs 10 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. May-October weather permitting. The 7-minute scenic route takes you through the meadows and woods of the Zoo.
6. See kids pulling tractors! September 8th & 9th is Family Farm Weekend. “This weekend is devoted to the rich farming heritage of our state. The cornucopia of activity includes a children’s tractor-pull contest, cooking demonstrations and down-home entertainment.” Kids pulling tractors? What could be more hilarious!?
7. Cheap souvenirs! You need one of those wax lions! Placed conveniently throughout the park are some very high-tech machines that create wax animal sculptures ($2.00) and turn Abe’s face into a flattened penny souvenir ($.50 + your penny).
8. Hang out at Monkey Island! Watch the baboons pick through each others’ backs in the new outdoor public exhibit. Last year the bonobo group was introduced to its new environment; 500 feet of elevated mesh passageways displayed in the Zoo’s forest.
9. Feast with the Beasts! Zoo a la carte is so delicious. Taste-test 25 area restaurants while you jam to music from local and national groups on the Zoo’s six stages. The Zoo is open extended hours for this festival, August 16-19.
10. There’s so much to see! Besides all the animals I’ve already mentioned there’s so much more including sharks, leopards, octopus, alligators, penguins, rhinos, lemurs, pandas, otters, camels, goats, gazelle, sheep, elephants, sea lions, bats and flamingos.

June Drink of the Month: Light Royal Cranberry

LIGHT ROYAL CRANBERRY – June 2012

One of the winners of our Recipe Contest was Riley’s submission of Light Royal Cranberry. She pours 1-2 shots of Mount Royal Light over ice and adds cranberry juice to it. Her favorite brand of cranberry juice to use is Ocean Spray because it’s lighter on the calories but still has the same great taste. Riley says that this drink is delicious all times of the year but she particularly likes to drink it while laying by the pool in the summer. Enjoy! Maybe post of pictures of you and your friends drinking a Light Royal Cranberry by your pool on our Facebook page!

Recipe Contest Winners!!

Congratulations to the following winners
of our original recipe contest! Thank you for all the amazing entries!

MOUNT ROYAL MANHATTAN
Submitted by: Robert from Park Falls, WI

Ingredients/Supplies Needed:

• Old Fashioned glass half filled with ice cubes
• Mount Royal Light
• Sweet Vermouth
• Cherries

Directions:

1. Fill glass 3 quarters of the way full of Mount Royal Light.
2. Add a dash of sweet vermouth.
3. Garnish with 2 cherries.
4. Enjoy properly with a good cigar of drinker’s liking!

 

 

MOUNT ROYAL FASHION
Submitted by: Deb from Sheboygan, WI

Ingredients/Supplies Needed:

• Old Fashioned glass filled with ice
• 2 oz. Mount Royal Light
• 2 oz. Old Fashioned Mix
• Ginger Ale

Directions:

1. Pour Mount Royal Light and Old Fashioned Mix into glass.
2. Fill the rest with ginger ale.
3. Enjoy!

LIGHT WHISKY LEMONADE
Submitted by Riley from Pewaukee, WI

Ingredients/Supplies Needed:

• A fun drinking glass full of ice
• 1-2 shots of Mount Royal Light
• Your favorite light lemonade
• Lemon wedge for a garnish

Directions:

1. Start with a shot (or two if your feeling lucky) of Mount Royal Light.
2. Add your favorite light lemonade. My favorite is Minute Maid Light in the can. This way it is really portable.
3. I finish off the drink with a squeeze of lemon and a lemon wedge for the corner of the glass.
4. Enjoy this drink in the summer without the full, bloated feeling beer can give you. It makes for a great pool-side drink!

Light vs. Lite

(This blog post refers only to "light" and "lite" when it comes to food and drinks. Obviously there are other definitions for both. The Online Etymology Dictionary helped me out with the specifics.)

Our new, awesome Mount Royal Light t-shirts sparked a question…

Q: Why are some foods and alcohols named “light” and others are “lite”?

The Online Etymology Dictionary listed light and lite as the following:

Light: not heavy; light in weight.

Lite: alternative spelling of light by 1962. Used from at least 1917 in product names, often as a variation of light.

I found several comments listing the meanings that the words light or lite on a package or in a brand name could mean from various websites.

• A third fewer calories, or no more than half the fat, of the original version of the product.
• No more than half the sodium compared to the original version of the product.
• A lighter color or texture — this does not affect the nutrition of the product.

In Mount Royal Light’s case, it’s a third fewer calories and a third less alcohol. My point is, there is not really a big difference between the two words when it comes to describing a brand. It has to do more with what the company prefers to call their product. Light has several other definitions and uses and in those cases, lite would not make sense to use.

The Grammarist blog says, “If you want to be safe, use it only in reference to low-calorie or low-fat versions of things.”

Take me out to the ball game!

In honor of Milwaukee’s favorite baseball team’s Opening Day 2012, we have a baseball themed blog post! As I stated way back when, I’m still learning about whisky and all its glory. I stumbled upon an interesting bit of Mount Royal Light history.

Let me take you back to the year 1989. Mount Royal Light was a brand new product being distilled by Seagram. It was introduced to test markets in Wisconsin, New York, Colorado, Tennessee and Massachusetts in the fall of 1989 and summer of 1990.

On January 9th, 1989, Carl Yastrzemski and Johnny Bench were “elected into the Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers Association of America in their first year of eligibility.* Yastrzemski, affectionately known as “Yaz” was a left fielder and first baseman for the Boston Red Sox for his entire 22 years in the major league (1961-1983). 

Carl Yastrzemski throwing the first pitch before game one of the World Series: Cardinals v Red Sox on October 23, 2004

Yaz struck up a deal with the Seagram Company and began endorsing Mount Royal Light. Press releases were sent out to publications around the States:

You’ve heard of Michael Jackson’s Victory Tour, The Police Synchronicity Tour and Madonna’s Material Girl Tour … Now baseball great Carl Yastrzemski is set to embark on a tour of his own: ‘The 1989 Seagram’s Mount Royal Light ‘Yaz’ Hall of Fame Tour…’

The famed ‘Yaz’ will be ‘grandstanding’ in Boston to introduce Seagram’s Mount Royal Light — the first distilled spirit with less calories and less alcohol AND authentic whiskey taste. Although on an extremely tight schedule we’d like to arrange a time for you to meet with Carl and get his thoughts on his coming Hall of Fame induction and why he believes Seagram’s Mount Royal Light is a good product for today’s active lifestyles.

Reactions from critics as far as Yaz endorsing the alcohol were a little indecisive. But according to a Seagram representative, Mount Royal Light was “done fabulously well so far.”

How great would it be if one of Milwaukee’s finest baseball players endorsed Mount Royal Light? I would Photoshop an image of one or a few of them with some MRL and post it… but I’d rather not get sued! Just sayin’…wouldn’t it be nice?!

For more reading on the team with the running sausages and baseball in general, check out this blog.

HAPPY TAILGATING BASEBALL FANS!!

Is Mount Royal Light Gluten-free?

There have been no reports of allergic reactions to Mount Royal Light but we cannot claim that it is gluten-free due to TTB regulations.

We’ve been asked a few times if Mount Royal Light is gluten-free. After a bit of exploring and asking the Sazerac reps here’s your answer:

Gluten is the protein-containing part of grain. Wheat gluten is what people are most concerned about, especially those with Celiac disease. All of our domestic vodkas are produced from corn. Weller and Van Winkle products do have wheat in the recipe; however our other Bourbons only use corn, barley and rye.

Other countries have determined that distilled products with no additives (vodka, bourbon, tequila) can be considered gluten-free as they are pure distilled products. United States has not made such a ruling, yet. To the best of our knowledge, the distillation removes or denatures the proteins and gluten associated with the starting grains.

Until very recently it was against regulations for any alcohol beverage to advertise as “Gluten-free.” The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury has just come out with a ruling for producers to start voluntarily labeling products that contain one of the eight major allergens: wheat, milk, eggs, soybeans, peanuts, treenuts, fish, and shellfish. We expect that this regulation will soon become mandatory.

We have not heard of any adverse allergic reactions nor had any complaints from celiac patients to our products. However, as always, please consult your physician before consuming any alcoholic beverages.

Basically, we cannot claim that Mount Royal Light is gluten-free because of TTB regulations, but “we have not heard of any adverse allergic reactions nor had any complaints from Celiac patients” to it. Drink on MRL lovers!