Today Aberlour


April 26, 2025

WF’s Little Duos, today Aberlour

Always a pleasure to taste Aberlour. The old bottles you come across in Limburg are always exceptional – ah, the ’64 – but here we’ll be sampling more recent offerings.

Roseanna Smith, Eggshells on White
with Orange Leaf, 2018

Aberlour 18 yo 2002 (54.8%, OB, for The Whisky Lodge, sherry butt, cask #3266, 612 bottles, 2025?)

I believe this baby only came out this year, for reasons I couldn’t explain. Colour: deep gold. Nose: this is absolutely textbook Aberlour, and while we’re at it, rather evocative of some older-style bottlings too. A beautiful sherry, elegant yet taut, closer to amontillado, faintly smoky – or almost – and above all dominated by pecan pie, always a deadly delight. Gorgeous notes of salted toffee, or shall we say salted Breton caramel, the kind you really shouldn’t eat more than one of at a time. With water: earthen floors, dunnage warehouses, ancient casks, warm wash, copper pots… it does take you on a tour of the distillery, in a way. Mouth (neat): punchy, unmistakably Aberlourian again, salty, tarry, then veering completely towards toffee and dark nougat. Hints of cherry liqueur and blackcurrant cordial. With water: ah perfect, no half-measures here, a dry, devilishly oxidative sherry, saline, with mounting notes of old walnuts and pipe tobacco. Boom. Finish: long, unwavering, merely handing your tongue back to you in slow motion. Sixty caudalies at the very least. Comments: now that is chatty, as they used to say in those old 60s French films.
SGP:462 - 90 points.

Independent Aberlour bottlings are generally more focused on orchard fruits — let’s see if that holds true here…

Aberlour 22 yo 2003/2025 (52.7%, Maltbarn, A dram is born, sherry cask, 193 bottles)

These conceptual labels are quite something, Maltbarn will soon be able to exhibit their bottles at Art Basel or the Armory Show in New York (assuming that fair hasn’t been banned by you-know-who by then). Colour: gold. Nose: this one’s different, more polished, showcasing almond or pistachio cream at first, then modelling clay and a kind of chilled soup made from woodland mushrooms and double cream. Something along those lines. A lovely earthy profile, with humus, damp woodland, mosses… how could anyone resist such things, I ask you? With water: ah, splendid sherry! Walnuts, mustard, seawater, shellfish, mint, soy sauce – a proper coastal pantry. Mouth (neat): blimey, we’re back in official territory – tar, toffee, salt, walnuts, orange marmalade, coffee, oloroso… With water: quite a bit of black pepper muscling its way in, along with generous notes of bitter orange. It settles down a touch here – we had it at 91 before. Finish: long, dry, leaning towards bitter chocolate, still carrying that pinch of salt. Comments: we’re forced to lower the score, you see, but in doing so we land on what amounts to a very elegant stalemate.
SGP:462 - 90 points.

Well then, these two drams turned out to be much closer to each other than expected!

Check the index of all Aberlour we've tasted so far