Aberlour A'bunadh

I liked it so much that I didn't even think about adding water. This is very good with water added too. The nose with water raises the pitch of both the grape flavours and the sweetness and is very appealing. Palate and finish with water have flavours which are merged together, and nice enough. I prefer palate and finish without water. Cheers, whisky mates!!!

Still over 2 years before I taste this one... these reviews are making me more impatient.

Perhaps we can open my bottle together in 2018.

@Nozinan, I seldom recommend that anyone abandon his or her discipline,...but in the case of you and A'bunadh, I would still respect you for making a change of course.

If you decide to hold firm, I'll be happy to open your bottle with you in 2018.

@Victor, Congratulations on your 400th review at Connosr.

I had noticed a recent increase in your frequency of review posting. This, your 400th review of a popular expression, and an excellent review at that, satisfies my curiosity.

400 is a milestone of significance, a great many whiskies shared with our on-line community and a foreshadowing of rendezvous to come along highway 400 later this spring. With the rate at which we have shared scores of samples and bottles, many more of us will reach the lofty 400 whisky plateau before too long.

I wonder where we might get a bottle of this gem?

@paddockjudge, See me in 2018...

@Victor, what a smashing review. Time flies, I've got a bottle of Batch #39.

Here's to another 400 reviews from you!

Thank you very much, gentlemen. @Nozinan, @paddockjudge, @Frost, you have been stalwart whisky mates and nice friends. I am very hopeful that our club Connosr will prosper and grow when its renovation is fully implemented.

As for my next 400 reviews, I expect that the pacing of them will be much more gradual than has been the pacing of my first 400 reviews. The reasons? 1) I have reviewed all of my hundreds of open bottles, 2)I have only about 25 or 30 un-reviewed unopened bottles, which I am reluctant to open until I finish off a lot of the already opened bottles, 3) I've already reviewed a large percentage of the bottles from my sister's large collection, 4)I am buying few new bottles now, because of price, our storage capacity, and our large open bottle inventory. Most of my recent reviews have been from samples from others. The pace of my acquisition of new samples from others is fairly slow now. C'est la vie.

But it is still an excellent thing to have the opportunity to sit back and enjoy the whiskies which I do have in my "cabinet".

Cheers, to all my many whisky buddies!

@Victor, congratulations on review 400. I have an opened batch 49 for about 1.5 years. Not much left but I will have a dram in honor of #400.

Cheers

Congrats on the 400th review @Victor! This is one of my all time favourite scotches, so much in fact that I stocked up when it was still available here and have 3 bottles set aside. Perhaps if we meet up one day to share a drink I can contribute a bottle of 49 to the tasting!

@mscottydunc, sharing Batch 49 might happen sooner than you think.

Thanks @Astroke, @mscottydunc! Hopefully I will sit down with you guys over whisky one day.

It is a smart thing to put aside a few bottles of any first rate batch of A'bunadh.

Maybe it goes without saying given the score and the chat here, but is batch 49 an ESPECIALLY good batch relative to other A'bunadhs?

The night after I saw this review, I spotted one 49 on a local shelf with some other batch behind it. I swapped the two so that the 49 would hang around a little longer while I consider snapping it up.

@OlJas, yes, in my book, # 49 exhibits the quintessential A'bunadh intensity, as do batches # 26 and # 32. I prefer these three batches to the other 3 or 4 I have had. For me that preference is mostly about the thickness and lushness of the flavour density especially. I hear Batch # 53 is fabulous, too, but I haven't tasted it yet, so I can't confirm. Batch # 45 is well-loved too, and it has terrific flavours, but it is thin in texture compared to these other batches.

I agree with you completely about 45...I was excited to open it 2 years ago but found the 44 much more flavoursome.

I'm looking forward to opening the 49 in 2 years and the 53 in 5...

This year I will try the 47 (I hear it was also great), and in the intervening years I will go back to some of my archived unopened bottles...

Thanks, Victor. I'll probably grab my local "hidden" 49 if I get a chance.

@OlJas, yeah, I do that same thing with putting the desirable batch bottle to the back of the shelf while I decide about whether or not I want to come back and pick it up later. There is no sense in encouraging a 'random' buyer from picking up "your" bottle from the front of the shelf.

Chuckle, chuckle. I do that too. Most recently, one of the local retailers had their own special bottling of Evan Williams Single Barrel 2005. Most aged 10 years 1 month, but I found several bottles aged 10 years 9 months. Hid them behind the 8 year old 2006 and 2007's.

Another option is to buy them and keep the receipt then return if you don't want them.