Aberlour 12

I had to steal this photo from the Aberlour site, as I will explain later.  I bought this whiskey in our local liquor store because I wanted to see what one could get from a relatively inexpensive bottle.  This was one of the least expensive bottles of single malt that one can buy here, being below $50.00 a bottle.  I believe when I bought it, it was about $43.00.  I had not tried it, and it was cheap.  So that is why I went for this one.  Aberlour is not a name that I recall coming up very often in my travels.

At that price, I did not expect much.  It is a 12 year old double cask Speyside whiskey, matured in both bourbon and sherry casks. 

I had learned that the only way that I could develop an understanding of single malts was to compare them in side by side tests.  At this point in time, I only had three bottles.  Bruichladdich Classic Laddie, I believe a Glendronach 12, and this bottle of Aberlour 12.

We did blind taste tests of these three.  I have to say, I was very impressed with this whiskey.  No water, or ice, at room temperature, this is a sweet whiskey with little to no taste of smoke or any harsh burn.  It was quite smooth, and really tasty. 

When we toured the oban plant, the presenter discussed the flavours typical of single malt scotch whisky - smoke, salt, citrus.  It took me a while to understand the salt flavour, but it is definitely there is some whiskeys that I tried, and not much in this Aberlour 12.  So far, out of the few bottles of Scotch that I have bought, this has been the best value.  It is quite smooth, and sweet.  It made me want to try the other Aberlours that are available here....Aberlour 16 and A'bunadh.  More on those in subsequent posts.

Oh, and the reason I had to steal the picture is because we finished off this bottle fairly quickly.  This is good stuff.