Aberlour

Aberlour Distillery

Founded: 1879
Stills: 2 Wash 2 Spirit
Capacity: 3.5 Million Litres
Water Source: Ben Rinnes Mountain
Owners: Pernod Ricard

1960-1973: Great Casks and Old School Beauty

Aberlour in the 1960s was one of the larger distilleries operating in the post-war era, this was due to its expansion in 1945 making it ready for the inevitable whisky boom. Traditional production techniques were still in practice during these decades and, combined with a high usage of phenomenal casks, the whisky from this time is predictably fantastic. The best examples are the early official bottlings of Aberlour from the 1960s through to the 1980s. These were a mix of no age, 8yo and 12yo bottlings all in cube shaped bottles. These are still available today at quite reasonable prices which is very curious as the whisky inside is utterly stunning. Waxy, immensely spicy, herbaceous and mineraled with notes of Riesling, barbeque sauce, vinaigrette and oily fruit qualities. If you can get one then go for it because they are all excellent examples of old school whisky making and most offer a glimpse of Aberlour’s raw flavour as a spirit as very few of them were overtly sherry influenced. However there was a 1964 ‘vintage’ one bottled in the early seventies that was fully sherry matured and is probably one of the finest examples of Aberlour in bottle anywhere. Many of these bottlings were also at higher strengths (50% was very common) and provided the inspiration for today’s A’Bunadh series.

There are also several aged official bottlings from this time, many are stunningly clean, sherry matured malts, although they lack something of the power of the younger official bottlings. They are expensive these days but well worth trying if possible, they display big rounded fruit qualities with wonderful layers of rancio, tobacco leaf and tea. Great aged malts in other words.

1973-Present: Growth and Elegance

Aberlour was expanded and refitted in 1973, new condensers were installed, the stills were steam heated and fermentation techniques started to conform with the rest of the industry and the sudden fascination of commercial distiller’s yeast. This meant that the immense oiliness and coal like qualities of the distillate were tamed. In place of the old style a much more elegant and modern expression of Aberlour started to appear. The distillate style from then on was much more focused on soft fruits, spices, and chocolate notes in the sherry expressions and in bourbon wood it became quite malty, green, aromatic and sweet.

Nowadays Aberlour manages to remain one of the few major distilleries with a concise and reasonably consistent core range that is not dogged by excessive pricing, silly wood enhancements or overly pompous marketing. The 10, 12 and 16yo bottlings are all well crafted, sherry driven examples of Aberlour’s wonderful house style that seems to balance the taught richness of heavy sherry with a lively freshness that keeps them complex and interesting. The 18yo is the only widely available aged expression for now and it is excellent as you would hope if a little sweeter than the other expressions. There are also the legendary A’Bunadh bottlings. These are cask strength, NAS, small batch bottlings of Aberlour matured solely in fresh sherry casks. They are extremely powerful bottlings that reveal intense notes of spice, dark chocolate and stewed fruits. They are also extremely well priced so it is well worth trying one some time, they offer a style of whisky that is certainly an acquired taste but if you like big and bouncy sherry then you will die for an A’Bunadh. So long as Aberlour is able to maintain its supplies of good quality wood and its healthily simplistic approach to its product range and pricing then it should be able to remain a whisky of great quality and popularity which, judging by what’s in the bottle, it more than deserves.

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