It's Aberlour's ever-popular A'Bunadh single malt Scotch whisky! Each batch of this single malt is matured entirely in Spanish oloroso sherry butts, bestowing huge helpings of dried fruit and festive spice notes to the whisky, after which it's bottled up at full-on cask strength with no chill-filtration.
Zesty notes of chocolate-coated orange wheels join sticky ginger loaf and sherried fruits.
Plump sultanas, prunes, cakey spice, and marmalade, with biscuity malt and toffee apple in tow.
Sweet spices and rich oak linger.
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Having just finished a Batch 54 - i decided to try the batch 57 & the first thing i've noticed is that the 57 doesn't turn cloudy when water is added ! I don't usually drink cask strength so i'm not sure why there's a different reaction from the different batches. The 57 feels smoother & has a slightly oily feel around the mouth. I found the Sherry flavour less evident in the 57 & the colouration to be of a lighter shade too. I do like a Sherry Cask & am still enjoying this malt. A decent enough malt at the price ( got mine on offer @ £35 )
I though there was no greater love than the wife and the kids. Until I got this in my Christmas stocking. It's a glass of class. However owing to the strength add good dash of water just to mellow it out a bit and bingo. Nose:- Pepper Chocolate Oak Taste Fruitcake Sherry Hawthorn Feelings of Winter, Christmas and contemplative moods I well rounded and IMHO balanced Single Malt of distinction rates in my top 5. That swap top spot depending on my mood and the season I am in.
Love this series of bottling , love the nose and the way tasting makes my tastebuds come alive and then the velvet warmth as you swallow.... recommend this whiskey highly, don't let the strength put you off!!
This is a late review but I'd like to address the series, as it's a good example of what can go wrong with NAS whisky. "Trust us" say the producers, we can maintain an excellent standard without age statements and it gives us the freedom to use casks that we wouldn't otherwise be able to include. Well, in this case the NAS designation gives Aberlour the freedom to drop (run out of?) the older casks and reduce the quality over time, bringing better returns while the reputation runs on fumes. The early batches, up to the 30s perhaps, were legendary. Wikipedia suggests that whiskies as old as 25 years were finding their way into the batches and it was a Xmas cake sherry bomb, no doubt. Smooth yet powerful. Batch 51 is a pale shadow of those releases. It is noticeably young without the long, smooth finish of yore and oddly, has a harsh tannic note that burns the throat, like a young Bourbon. How can this be? The only thing I could think of was that they were charring the insides of the casks and pressing them back into service, how else could a sherried Speysider taste like Bourbon? You may ask how can I be sure that it's not just my imagination, these batches have been released over several years? Well, I have done the comparisons between batches and my peers have also, independently, made the same observations. There is a definite trend, I'm sorry to say and this stuff is just not worth the readies any more. For years this was a showcase for what NAS could be, it is now everything we feared it could become :-(
Another one from Canada! Having a taste testing get together with the boys. You get hit with a plethora of flavours like a punch in the face. Cinnamon, pepper, coconut with a touch of iodine. Soft finish but lasting.
