This review is from a distillery that doesn’t do much in the way of special releases. When I think about Aberlour, I think of a distillery that has a 12 Year old expression, a 16 Year, an 18 Year, and A’Bunadh. They don’t stray too far outside of their comfort zone and that’s ok.
The Distillery Reserve Collection is a pretty cool offering at all of the Chivas-owned distilleries in Scotland. One of the perks of visiting a distillery is access to whisky you can’t find anywhere else. This is one such example. These bottles are always bottled at cask strength without chill filtration and are often single cask.
In the case of this Aberlour bottling, this is an 18 year old single malt from cask 7317, a refill sherry butt. This was distilled in 1998 and bottled in mid-2017. Despite being matured in a second fill butt, the color of this whisky lead me to believe that there was still plenty of sherry influence left in that cask. Let’s see if I was right!
| Category | Notes |
|---|---|
| Appearance | Rust |
| Nose | Dark chocolate, toffee, maraschino cherries, cinnamon, almond paste, raisins, maple, stone fruits, orange. |
| Taste | Fruit juice, some nice oak, vanilla, Yoo-hoo, apples, dried cherries, caramel, allspice, nutmeg, citrus, just a hint of fresh spearmint |
| Finish | Pumpkin pie filling, more cherries, hints of green apples, pepper, oak throughout, high-Cacao chocolate, eventually fades to baking spice for a long time |
| Overall Thoughts | This is a big time whisky suited for the end of an evening. I'd be hard pressed to believe that this was from a refill sherry butt if I didn't read it on the label. This pour is just a touch too heavy on the spice but other than that, it’s sherried Aberlour done right. |
| Total Score | 88/100 |
