The Aberlour Whisky distillery is located in Aberlourtown in Speyside at the crossings of the rivers Lour and Spey near the rugged peaks of Ben Rinnes. Contrary to the date of 1879 on the Aberlour label, the distillery was founded by James Gordon and Peter Weir in 1826. The original distillery, which was destroyed in a fire, was rebuilt in 1879 by James Fleming, and this is the date marked on the bottles. Today, the distillery is owned by Chivas Brothers (Pernod Ricard) and has been since it was acquired from Campbell Distillers in 1975.
Check for the most up to date bottling of A’Bunadh here.
“Aberlour” is a Gaelic word meaning ‘mouth of the chattering burn’ (stream). The water source for Aberlour flows from Ben Rinnes, through the local peat and granite of the Lour valley and onto the distillery. The water is naturally soft and is used in all stages of production, and helps to lend Aberlour its smooth, delicate character.
Aberlour A’Bunadh (A’Bunadh is the Gaelic for ‘origin’) is a limited run, small batch, cask-strength single malt whisky. It has no age statement mainly because the whiskies used to blend it have too wide a range of ages to come up with an official age statement. Each batch is blended from whiskies ranging from 5 to 25 years old.
Aberlour A’Bunadh owes it huge levels of complexity and flavour, thanks to its maturation in the very best first-fill Oloroso sherry casks. It is one of the most heavily sherried single malts and owes its softness and sweet flavours to this process. The whisky itself is non-chill-filtered, and bottled at natural cask strength. Probably one of the best value cask-strength whiskies available.
Each batch varies slightly in tasting profile and alcoholic strength, the following are representative tasting notes.
Aberlour A’Bunadh is a deep, rich amber colour. The nose aromas of mixed spices, tobacco, cocoa, spiced orange, vanilla, and other notes associated with Oloroso sherry. The palate is rich with more orange notes, dried fruits, ginger and chocolate, toffee / caramel sherry and oak – it is full–bodied and creamy. The finish is full, strong and intense, long and lingering with a good dollop of sweetness, sherry flavours and more mixed spice.
