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Aberlour A'bunadh

High Test Speyside, Batch # 26

0 394

@VictorReview by @Victor

5th Feb 2011

0

Aberlour A'bunadh
  • Nose
    23
  • Taste
    24
  • Finish
    23
  • Balance
    24
  • Overall
    94

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Distribution of ratings for this: brand user

This is cask strength Oloroso Sherry cask matured whisky. This review is of batch # 26.

Nose: moderate intensity, sherry wine, some malt, a little smoke

Taste: walnuts, chestnuts, and sherry, with smoke, mown grass, and rosewater. This is sweet, as you would expect from full sherry cask aging. This is full-flavoured and delicious in the mouth

Finish: sherry flavours remain very long, as does the underlying smoke and the rosewater

Balance: As a lover of enormous flavours in my whiskies I am delighted to find that this A'bunadh does not disappoint in that department. The cult of 'Balance' among malt lovers often means that it is hard to find malts with the enormous flavour statements made by the best bourbon and rye whiskeys. Barley just cannot deliver the intensity of flavours that are delivered by rye and even by wheat. The big flavour, if it is to be there, has to come from somewhere, and it CANNOT come from barley. Sometimes it comes from sherry, sometimes from peat, sometimes from both sherry and peat. It will be a happy day for me when my European friends discover the true joys of the flavours of the grain RYE, which is just as strong in flavour as the heaviest peat or the thickest most chewy sherry, but, for me, at least, the most delicious and complex of the three. This A'bunadh is a great whisky, full blooded and powerful. I very much look forward to trying more batches of it in the future.

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3 comments

@jwise
jwise commented

I'm glad you have found this wonderful whisky! Enjoy it sparingly, and sipped slowly!

13 years ago 0

b
basmati commented

Hello Victor, Thank you for your reviews. I am not an experienced Whisky taster, but last week a few friends and I got together for a nice dinner and a whisky tasting. As it happened there were two batches of Aberlour A'bunadh: batch 26 and batch 32. I think almost everyone liked them and rated them highly; but there was a clear split in the group of 12 about the favourite. I for one was in the group siding for batch 26 by quite a margin over batch 32. I thought the taste explosion was remarkable. I preferred that batch 26 in my view has a few more edges to its taste and with it a little more character. I was so impressed, that I searched the internet and managed to find two bottles of batch 26 which I instantly ordered (one to drink and one to keep for tough times). Now I can't wait for them to arrive.

13 years ago 0

@Victor
Victor commented

@basmati, thank you for your comments. When I first reviewed batch # 32 I was quite enamored of it, and rated it a point better than batch # 26. I still like it a lot, of course, but with repeated tastings I have more recently leaned back to a slight preference for the batch #26. I agree with you that the flavour edge seems a little sharper here, with batch #26. When I first obtained it, I was delighted to be able to get a bottle of batch #26, because it received one of the very highest ratings Jim Murray gave to batches of Aberlour A'bunadh, at 95/100 pts. This whisky does not disappoint. I a sure that you will be happy to have two bottles of it.

13 years ago 0