Did you notice how I wasn't trying to be too exciting with the intro there? Hopefully this review will be like amazing whisky in a plain bottle, rather than cheap paint thinner type whisky in a fancy bottle. By that I mean that I'm hoping to create the impression of an amazing review by starting with a fairly dull intro so as not to build too much expectation. I have found to my cost that too much expectation is not such a good thing. I waited six months for a chance to watch Donnie Darko, expecting it to be absolutely mind blowing. It didn't deliver. Enough of this, it's whisky time.
Bit of an intro
Aberlour A'Bunadh (pronounced "a-boon-arh" apparently) is a cask strength whisky and this particular batch is bottled at 60.7%. I think they're now up to about batch 50, and each one is close to 60%. One of the more recent ones has come in at just under 60 and is available here in Norway so there may well be another A'Bunadh review on the way, although it'll take years for me to get to it at the current rate of reviewing. What a shocker. The name A'Bunadh means "of the origin" or possibly simply "the origin". The name was chosen in honour of the founder of the distillery James Flemming, the originator of this whisky. Nice Gaelic word, nice meaning, nice alliteration.
The Aberlour distillery is in the village of Aberlour in the Speyside region. The name Aberlour is Gaelic for "The mouth of the chattering burn". The burn in question is the River Lour which joins the River Spey near the village. It was founded in 1826 although the logo says 1879. I have no idea why. Maybe it's like the Heinz "57 varieties" thing. The number 57 was plucked out of the air because it sounded good, not because it refers anything in particular.
Although they make a bit of a deal about being by two rivers the water used comes from natural springs and is unusually soft. it's slightly interesting to contrast the Aberlour whisky making process as described on their website to the Laphroaig one. The water used in Laphroaig is already the colour of a fairly dark whisky when they take it from a heavily peat laden river. The Aberlour water is all clean and fresh and doesn't even have many minerals in it. The malt Aberlour use is not dried over peat at all, they're deliberately avoiding that flavour note, claiming that even their new make spirit naturally has berry flavours and things that they don't want to mask. To me this shows how different whiskies can be.
According to their own account the fruity flavours are present even at the wort stage. I don't know if that's an unusual thing or not, I've never tasted wort in a distillery. I tasted it while brewing ale with my old friend Mr. Tiffen. It tasted like malted milk biscuits as I recall, but then we were using different malt in a different way.
Aberlour is double distilled which I personally like the sound of. Triple distillation can create a more refined spirit, which would turn out with lighter flavours. I usually like heavier, richer flavours and so generally triple distilled whiskies are nice, but not as much to my taste as double distilled ones.
It seems Aberlour put a lot of effort into sourcing casks for maturation. Generally they use bourbon casks for the majority of the time or maturation, and finish in Oloroso Sherry butts. A'Bunadh however is matured in the sherry butt for the whole time. Apparently the blender selects the casks personally and noses each one to check it has the right qualities. I like the idea of that, and it honestly never occurred to me until now that nosing a cask might be something someone would do. It makes sense though.
Aberlours have several expressions currently available, including 12, 15, 16 and 18 year old double matured (bourbon and sherry casks) as well as a 12 year old sherry matured version and the expression we're concerned with here, A'Bunadh. Not concerned as in worried about it, just that that's the one I'm reviewing this time. You got that. On the website each expression has a description and some tasting notes. It was quite satisfying to read the tasting notes after making my own. Seriously, not lying. I haven't seen the website til today and I've been sampling the whisky for a month or more. I think they got it about right, although obviously they're presenting their tasting notes in a way that sounds as appealing as possible because they're trying to make money selling the stuff. I'd recommend to anyone to taste a whisky and make your own notes before reading any official ones. Having said that, if you're on a tight budget it might be worth having a look at tasting notes and reviews to see if it's the kind of thing you'll like. Read the notes or don't. It's your life, not mine, you can do what you like. My life is mine and I like to compare my notes to the official ones afterwards to see how close they are. Your life is yours and you're under no obligation to play the way I think you should. That's probably some kind of ethical philosophy. I forgot the name of it, but there's an ethical theory where (simply put) you continually ask yourself the question "am I being a prat right now?". I've gone off topic, sorry.
So, it's batch number 47 which is 60.7% ABV and non-chill filtered. I haven't found anything that says it doesn't have e150a caramel colouring added to it, which suggests that it might. The website does say they don't use chill filtration "or other modern processes." Does caramel colouring count as a modern process? Who knows. I suppose the Aberlour people do, but I don't so I'll drop it. I don't actually remember how much it cost, but I think it was around £35 at the time, which was over a year ago. It was on offer in Waitrose, so the normal price is probably a little higher. By the current exchange rate that's 444.1 Norwegian kroners which isn't bad for a cask strength whisky. At the time it was more like 350 kr, but that's life as an ex-pat I suppose. It's the equivalent of $53.78, 48.29 euros or 231.55 Malaysian Ringgits.
I reckon that's enough for this section. Actually I'll also mention that most of the reviews rate it very highly, but there seems to be a general consensus of opinion that it's going downhill slightly in more recent years. Unfortunately it seems to be the same across the industry due to the scarcity of decent casks which is due to the popularity of scotch whisky. I think they should raise the age that you can legally buy spirits to 34. That way a lot of people would have to stop buying scotch and there would eventually be less demand for barrels and therefore a greater use of good quality ones. They can raise it to 35 in January.
Packaging
I like the packaging on this one. Nothing bad to say about it at all other than that you need a knife or something to open the bottle, but that's not such a bad thing since I have a knife. Let's take a gander.
Not bad at all
Ok, it's not the most eye catching, but I'm going with how much I enjoyed it's appearance and why, not with how much a hypothetical marketing director might think it will affect the sales. I think it looks whisky-ish. It doesn't look like perfume. It doesn't look too fancy. Just right. The wax seal over the cork is a nice touch. It gives it a kind of old school, hand crafted feel, although I'd be surprised if it was actually put on there by hand. Did you notice the slight dent in the bottom of the tube? That occurred in my suitcase on the way back to Norway and is one of the reasons a tube or box is there. That could have been a crack in the bottle, but it wasn't. Hooray for whoever invented tubes. Mr Tube I assume. Or Mrs Tube, let's not be sexist here. Probably wasn't actually any member of the tube family. In fact the word tube doesn't come from a name, it comes from the latin "tubus" which means tube. Let's have a closer look at it.
It's a tube
It's a fairly sturdy cardboard tube. The pattern on the outside is like that brown paper you get for wrapping parcels up with string in the olden days. The lettering is quite plain, it tells you what you need to know: Name of the distillery, the name of the expression, the strength, amount in the bottle and in this case batch number. You don't need much more than that if you're confident in the whisky to speak for itself. Or if you know you already have a great reputation and can change your marketing strategy to give the appearance of a whisky that speaks for itself. How cunning they are, or possible how cynical I am. Anyway, it's a nice no-frills kind of design. This is the kind of thing that appeals to me. This and Lord of the Rings style, olde worlde, mythical stuff. It's a bit like a box of really good quality nails. You don't need a good nail box, you need a box of good nails. It's like that but with whisky. Kind of. Whatever, I like it.
The stamp on the side in white there that looks like a post mark says "The Original Cask Strength" round the edge, and "Bottled straight from the cask" in the middle. It looks like a seal of approval, but that's just a trick. They're trying to get if your head. It looks like some official dude has tested each bottle and stamped it to say it's awesome, but don't be fooled. They print that on all of them. It looks good though don't you think?
It's designed with function in mind too. The lid has a little foam pad on the inside to help keep the bottle safe, and in the bottom of the tube is a plastic insert that holds the bottom of the bottle in place. Well done Aberlour.
Have you ever seen a safer whisky tube lid?
The thing in the bottom of the tube.
So now to the bottle. It looks pretty good like the rest of the packaging and does a good job of containing whisky. It'd be pretty difficult for it to fail at containing whisky to be honest, but it seems pretty sturdy and looks quite nice. I kind of like how it's a bit kind of squat. A lot of whisky bottles are taller and thinner, but this one is more stout. It's a clear bottle too, so you can see the colour of the contents. Scroll back up for a picture, I can't be bothered putting another one. This blog post has been long enough in coming as it is. I'll post a closer pic of the label though. Here it is.
It's a label.
It's a nice looking label if you ask me. Got a decent bit of information on it, including batch number which I like. I can now buy a different batch and compare, which will be very interesting. Incidentally there seems to be a general consensus of opinion that the more recent batches are of a slightly lower quality than earlier ones, but it seems pretty consistent across the industry that quality is dropping. It's due to the popularity of scotch, but the popularity will drop as quality drops and then quality should increase again. My old friend Mr. Tiffen reckons it'll take 15 years til whisky quality's back up and he's beginning to explore rum in the mean time. Well, he wasn't exploring rum, but then I bought him a bottle and now he is.
Something of note with the packaging of this whisky is the seal over the cork. You can see in the first picture that there is red wax over the top of the bottle. this is pretty genius as it proves that the whisky hasn't been tampered with. A paper seal could be steamed off and then replaced, but a wax one like this would be more difficult to fake. You cave to cut through it with a knife, but that's not difficult, and you expect it with a wax seal. If foil has to be cut through I'd be thinking "Surely perforations aren't that hard to make. Put a little strip on it so I can get in for goodness sake." But with this I'm thinking. "Oh, a wax seal. There's a novelty. I'd better find a knife." It gives it a nice old school feel too.
Waxy as the freshly polished car of a bee.
Having cut through the wax and opened the bottle I found the opening was fairly wide. All that means if you don't get much of that lovely glugging sound you get from a full bottle of whisky. Ah well, can't have everything. At least the wax didn't interfere with pouring like I'd feared.
Stumpy
You can see by the shape of the cork that it's for a bottle with a fairly wide neck. I should have taken a picture of the open bottle for you to see, but what are you going to do? I suggest buying a bottle of your own if you're that keen to see it. In fact I'd recommend buying a bottle of your own and trying the whisky. You won't be disappointed. Unless you are, in which case blame my old friend Mr. Tiffen. Anyway, after opening the bottle a few times the wax still on the cork slipped off. It's actually kind of plasticy feeling, so I'm not sure if it's plasticy was or waxy plastic. Either way it does the job. It's a nice colour too. The point is that that when the wax came off the cork it revealed that the wooden top of the cork is very nice. Lovely dark coloured wood with a much nicer grain pattern than I'd expect in a mere cork.
What a pleasant surprise.
I almost forgot the back of the bottle. It's got thee name of the distillery on it. Here it is looking all glassy:
Like ineffective braille.
I like the raised writing on the bottle. It's not something you see that much and gives it a nice authentically old time feel. Olden days, but luxury olden days. I hope you enjoyed all these pictures, but this section is plenty long enough now so I'm moving on.
Smell in bottle
Opening
Brandy and dried fruits like Christmas cake
Glacé cherries
Barley sugar sweets
Raisin
Currants
Christmas cake spices
Treacle
Molasses
Baked apple (cooked cooking Apple)
Cinnamon
Not that much alcohol especially considering the strength
Maybe candied peel (but might be imagining cos it's so Christmasy)
Christmas tree (again, it might be imagined because of all the other Christmasy smells)
Later
Initially a bit of a yeasty smell
A bit of Fudge
Sherry and almost only sherry from then on
Appearance
Dark. It's a dark kind of whisky colour with a reddish tinge. Maybe amber +2, but not really sure.There's nothing on any of the packaging to say it's natural colour so there's a chance they use a little caramel colouring. The reddish tinge likely comes from the sherry butts it's aged in. here it is.
Later
Initially a bit of a yeasty smell
A bit of Fudge
Sherry and almost only sherry from then on
Appearance
Dark. It's a dark kind of whisky colour with a reddish tinge. Maybe amber +2, but not really sure.There's nothing on any of the packaging to say it's natural colour so there's a chance they use a little caramel colouring. The reddish tinge likely comes from the sherry butts it's aged in. here it is.
Darker in real life
It looks darker when you see it in person and the redness didn't come out great here, but you can see it a bit in the middle near the surface. It certainly looks like it'll be tasty. I was about to type that the colour and the flavour are in no way connected and generally that's the rule, but the redness does give a suggestion that red grapes have been involved at some point. it could point to aging in sherry, port or wine barrels and therefore gives a clue about what to expect. Not necessarily though, it doesn't give you any clues about the quality of the maturation, how long it's been in the sherry, port or wine barrel, how good the barrel was or how much flavour was imparted to the whisky. At this point, having read the label, all we know is that it's aged in sherry barrels, and looks reddish, although we're expecting dried fruit flavours, sweetness, and a relatively full body because of the sherry. (The "legs" tell you it's going to be pretty full bodied. You can't see it in the picture, but they're pretty wide. I assume you know what I mean by the legs, but for those who don't they're the tiny trickles down the inside of the glass you get when you swirl it around and then watch it settle). On to tasting at last!
Neat
Nose
More alcohol than I could smell in the bottle when I opened it.
Vanilla essence
Christmassy in general, dried fruits, spices etc.
Orangey, like a cross between orange liqueur, marmalade and Jaffa cakes. Not fresh orange.
Cherry liquor chocolates. (Really that'd be cherry, dark chocolate and alcohol)
Sherry (what a surprise)
Sultanas
Rich treacle toffee, that gets less treacley as it sits in the glass and evetually becomes like Toffos. I'm not sure if they still make those, but they were a brand of toffee sweets I had as a kid.
Kind of sappy wood, even to the point that I put in my notes "live oak perhaps" it was that sappy.
Something flowery. I suppose it could have been heather since it's from scotland but it was just a general flower smell to me.
Blackcurrant
Maybe raspberry, but artificial raspberry.
Sponge cake
Arrival
Sweet and rich
Raisin
Christmassy
Alcohol sting
Development
Alcohol sting
Numb lips
Burning tongue
A hint of vanilla and sponge cake
A slightly bitter vegetal note.
Finish
Surprisingly short, but I suppose the alcohol kills it off when it's in such a high concentration. 60.7% is flippin' stong!
Drying sensation in the mouth and lingering bitter herbal taste, not unlike green tea.
4 tsp water (Yes, 4. It's cask strength.)
Nose
Immediately dried fruits and candied peel soaking in brandy ready to go in the christmas cake.
Fudge appears as soon as the water is added.
Caramel
Toffee
Tangy berries
Marmalade
Orange liqueur
Spiced orange (mentioned in the official tasting notes. Very christmassy to me.)
Dark cherry chocolates
Vanilla
Real custard (made with eggs and cream, not yellow dust. Still vanilla, but with an eggy creaminess to it)
Apple crumble (Cooked apple, but with more to it and with a bicuity note.)
Maybe cooked rhubarb
Dried fruit in general but with a deep prune quality
Banana, fresh at first, then baked
Herby, possibly angelica or fennel.
Dark chocolate digestive biscuits. (Biscuity note, from before but with dark chocolate now)
Eventually barley sugar and cereal
Almost mulled wine
Possibly dried apricot
Strawberry sweets
Arrival
First thought was how full bodied it is. This is a really rich whisky.
Sweet
Herbal with the sweetness, a bit like some kind of weird foreign confectionary
Maybe angelica (i really need to get hold of some and check that taste reference)
Marmalade
Orange liqueur
Menthol
Kind of dry
Christmassy spices (clove, cinnamon, ginger etc. Maybe allspice is the best thing to call it.)
Ginger, like these ginger chocolates my Mum likes. I think it's dark chocolate covered crystalized ginger.
Creamy cereal (not unlike porridge, but not oaty. 45 minutes with water at this point, it took a long time to develop)
Development
Quite long
Treacle
Something herby, maybe angelica (The herbal note seemed more prominent after the bottle had been open for a couple of weeks. It was kind of like a more herbal liquorice but milder.)
Touch of vegetal bitterness
A bit biscuity
Bit of vanilla
Creamy and berry-ish at the same time.
Almost like Bailey's with creamy vanillary, whisky stuff going on.
Kind of fragrant flowery thing with the bitter vegetal thing. Reminded me of eating flower petals in a posh salad at a wedding, fragrant but bitter. Now that I think of it a lot of people didn't eat the flowers and now I'm wondering if they were just for decoration. I got an interesting tasting reference all the same.
Dark chocolate, which was there at first, but faded away as the water did it's thing, only to come back later for another visit.
Ginger
A touch of fresh mint
Red grape juice (not a great surprise given the sherry barrels it's matured in)
Clove and cinnamon.
In my notes I put "like a pomander orange" which is an orange studded with cloves and covered in cinnamon used as an air freshener in the 1600s. That's the spiced orange note they mention in the official tasting notes.
Finish
Lasts a long time
Christmas pudding
Lingering sweetness like after eating a spoon of golden syrup
Toffee
Tea, becoming a more distinctly black tea after a while
Creamy mouth feel that lingers long
Vanilla, like real custard (maybe like creme anglaisbut that's pretty much cold custard)
Liquorice (nice sweet kind like liquorice bootlaces)
Woody
Leafy vegetal, like leaf mold in autumn
Slightly orangey, like Jaffa cake orange flavour
Herbal spicey flavours that were hard to pin down, but I'd say turmeric was one
Kind of grassy
Slightly bitter with the woodiness
Sherry flavour comes back in after a few minutes, but you have to resist another sip of whisky to get there.
A few extra comments
You may have noticed fudge, toffee and caramel all one after the other in the tasting notes. I found all three of these in the whisky and it's like the one flavour gradually changes with the water, and it's a fairly typical characteristic of Speyside whiskies. I think it's worth paying attention to a flavour as you drink, to see how it changes. Toffee and caramel are very similar flavours, but not identical. It would be easy to taste caramel early on and then have it nailed down as caramel in your thinking, when it's becoming more like toffee as the water works it's magic. Best not to become too rigid in my opinion.
The long finish indicates a good quality maturation, although the rumour is the quality's dropping. As I said earlier on quality seems to be dropping across the industry, and my old friend Mr. Tiffen tells me this is because of the popularity of scotch whisky. As quality drops so will popularity, and then they'll have to increase quality to shift product again. He reckons in about 15 years the quality will be back up, but that's along time. The options in the meantime are put up with a slightly lower standard of scotch or start exploring other spirits. I plan to do both.
Scotch mist develops after a while, confirming the claim that this whisky has never been near a chill filtering machine. The various flavours involved indicate sherry, the thick legs indicate the bull body. I'm tempted to call this whisky honest, but I'll settle for saying that it's a good one for believing the clues it gives you.
Very typical Speyside flavours. In my notes I put "Unmistakably Speyside" and I was right.
Conclusion
On the whole this whisky is full bodied to the point of being syrupy, becoming creamy towards the end and then lingering for quite a long time. Lots of Christmassy flavours, to the point I almost put Christmas tree in the tasting notes. It brought up Christmas so much in my mind that I'm pretty sure I imagined certain Christmas tastes and smells, like Christmas trees. I'd be willing to believe there was a hint of pine in there if someone else confirmed it. Comment if you did.
The best feature of this whisky is how it develops with the water. The taste and smell at any one moment are not particularly complex, but over time it changes a lot. This would be a great whisky to use to introduce someone to the way water changes whisky. Possibly it's even a decent beginners whisky as most of the flavours and smells are quite recognizable and it changes in a fascinating way. Also great for looking at things like scotch mist, legs, colour. Maybe a good as a first intermediate whisky. Beginner's nerdy tasting whisky might be the best way to put it. With the price and the strength I'd suggest not buying a bottle if you've never had whisky, but find a friend with a bottle and try theirs. That would make it not a beginner's whisky, but then the same applies with any whisky. If you've never had it before, try to find someone who will let you taste it before splashing out on a bottle of something you may not like. Having said that I can't quite imagine anyone not liking A'Bunadh
This is an awesome, tasty, and cozy whisky. Warm, spicy, rich, sweet. Possibly a winter whisky, and I'm looking forward to the really crappy weather to come so I can drink it by the fire and listen to the wind outside. Very much Christmas for me. Would I buy it again? Absolutely. I can't wait to try a different batch and compare the flavours. I'd recommend it to anyone, even if they're not interested. On the standard one to ten scale I'd have to say this is likely to be a favourite for years to come, assuming they can keep up a sufficient standard of quality.
I'm off home to open another bottle now. I think it'll be the Glen Glassaugh new make spirit this time, but the next review will probably be Jær Aquavit, since I've already finished the bottle. Thanks for reading. I'll try to get a review up quicker next time, but only if you tell all your friends to read it. I was about to sign off with "happy dramming" but just couldn't bring myself to do it. Bit too cheesy. Anyway, feel free to comment and make sure you come back and read some more of my awesome reviews. I'm still considering trying a video review, but we'll see.
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