In following up on the Glenlivet event from last week, while there, me and few friends had a nice chat with Rick Edwards who is a representative for many distilleries in a vast portfolio. Two of which are Glenlivet and Aberlour. So, we arranged an Aberlour tasting at the last minute, which was nicely attended. The goal of the event was to see if we could discern different tasting notes from different batches of Abunadh.
The Abunadh (pronounced, Ah-BOON-ah, with perhaps a very slight "R" at the tail end) is a cask strength, sherry cask release that Aberlour releases marking the batch and barrel on each label. For many of my friends, there are favorite batches and some batches to avoid. One friend is such a freakazoid about the Abunadh that he has a journal discerning which batch and barrel are superior to the others.
So we tasted the Aberlour 12, 16, and 18 which are doublewoods (meaning the whisky is aged in sherry and American oak casks) and three different batches of Abunadh (16, 21 and 39). The general consensus seemed to be that there were consistent flavor characteristics across the different batch, but as you look closer, there are definite variances. For me, Batch 39 presented much more complexity with good sweet dried fruit of apple and fig, with a bone dry, spicy finish that was very long and mellowed into a black licorice type of taste. On the other hand, Batch 21 just did not present much discernable taste at all. Batch 16 was complex, for my palate, not as good as the 39. Batch 16 had a mustiness that was a little off-putting for me.
These are good whiskies and are reasonably priced. If you like sherry bombs you should definitely check them out. That Batch 39 is a recent release so it might be available in stores.
