Earlier this week I reported on a forthcoming Bourbon casks A’bunadh named A’bunadh Alba on the Whisky Gospel Facebook page (Go like the page for news!), let’s talk on the latest offering from Aberlour distillery where they dabbled in some bourbon casks as well – Aberlour “Casg Annamh”.

The name means “Rare Cask” although I think we can safely ditch out the notation that real rare casks were involved here and it’s just a marketing idea.

Aberlour Casg Annamh Batch #1 (48%, £54.95/€46,90)

Nose: Sour sweet dried fruit, barley and cereals, honey and white pepper. After a few minutes it open up and we get some lovely sherry notes like milk chocolate, sour red berries juice mixed with demerara sugar so we get enhanced sour and sweet experience. Continue reading →

Most malt heads are familiar with Aberlour Distillery due to it’s heavily popular A’bunadh series (58 batches and counting) as they (and I) love a good sherrybomb. But we shouldn’t forget there are other whiskies in the line-up ranging from 12 Year Old to 18 Year Old and bottled at 40% or 43%.

But there’s an interesting variant to the 12 Year Old, one non chill-filtered and bottled at 48%, priced very similarly to the standard 40% and chill-filtered.

Aberlour 12 Year Old Non Chill-Filtered (48%, £35.99/€43.50)

Nose: Rich and full, malt and strong dried fruit, figs, cinnamon, nutmeg, cookie dough, fresh sweet berries juice. Then getting soaked raisins, a lot of dark chocolate, coffee grounds, still keeping the honey and light fruitiness in the background for balance. Continue reading →

Aberlour distillery doesn’t have a wide range of official releases. There’s the 12 year old entry level and the 15 year old playing the role of the older sibling. But there’s also the uber successful a’bunadh release, there’s no age statement but it’s punchy at cask strength and is a full blown sherry bomb.

Unfortunately there’s no matured sherry bomb in their line up, but The Whisky Exchange came to the rescue with a new and exclusive 16yo Aberlour from a first-fill sherry cask bottled at cask strength of 53.5%.

Aberlour 16 Year Old Single Cask #4738 TWE Exclusive (53.5%, £99.95)

Nose: Lovely sherried nose with soaked raisins, red berries and dried fruit. Bold cinnamon, demerara sugar, heavy and creamy. After a few minutes in the glass, whiffs of fresh ripe sour plums and vanilla. A few drops of water makes it lighter and fresher, I could even say it smells sweeter, there’s a lot more vanilla with added sweet fresh red fruit, berries and milk chocolate.
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Last week, we recommended on Glendronach 15 Revival as an option for sherried holiday whisky, but today we’ll turn up the heat a notch or two and we’ll go for a real sherry bomb – Aberlour a’Bunadh.

Aberlour a’Bunadh is a smash hit. There’s no other way to define it, with 53 batches since 1997 and with no signs of letting go of the gas pedal, it’s surely a successful release. It’s one of the wide available NAS whiskies that is still hailed as a good bang for the money, providing a sherry bomb for a reasonable sum of money and in other words – it’s a great value for money whisky.

I have had a few a’Bunadh batches during my whisky journey and they are never the same. Some are more sulphury, some leans toward sweetness and roundness while others leans toward sour berries. Batches are never a like and it’s always fun and pleasure to taste another batch and wonder: is it the best batch so far? Let’s review two batches and see how much variance do we have here.

Aberlour a’Bunadh Batch 46 (60.4%)

Nose: Sharp and stingy at first. There’s some youth showing through with young malt and some new make notes. Not much chocolate and more of fruit sweetness, cinnamon and a bit of sulphur. Continue reading →