Aberfeldy
Rating: B+
Region: Eastern Highlands
Owner: John Dewar & Sons (Bacardi)
Founded: 1896
The Aberfeldy distillery was built in 1896 by the esteemed architect Charles Doig for John and Tommy Dewar. Like many other distilleries it was built with sole purpose of creating malt whisky for their blended whisky, that being Dewar’s White Label.
The distillery fully subscribes to the Goodrum Myth of pretty distillery = pretty malt whisky, however the distilleries penchant for the use of caramel slightly marred the distillery released 12 year old, but thankfully not the rather magnificent 21 year old. With the re-launch of the range in 2014 caramel appears not to no longer being used in the 12 year old and now the beautiful herbal, honeyed character of the whisky shines through.
Given that White Label sells over 30 million bottles a year and is comfortably in the top ten blended whiskies sold in the United States, there is very little sold to the Independent Bottling companies, although Gordon & MacPhail’s appears to have a fair amount of casks as it is a regular bottling in their Connoisseurs Choice range. I have to say that it is one of their most consistent bottlings in that range and to date I haven’t tasted a poor bottling, with the pick of the bunch being the 20 year old, which was bottled in 2011. A.D Rattray have also released a couple of rather good single cask bottlings over the years as well.
So, an overall score of B+ is pretty good by my calculations. Now the distillery have dropped the use of caramel, maybe it will it will eventually merit an A
Region: Eastern Highlands
Owner: John Dewar & Sons (Bacardi)
Founded: 1896
The Aberfeldy distillery was built in 1896 by the esteemed architect Charles Doig for John and Tommy Dewar. Like many other distilleries it was built with sole purpose of creating malt whisky for their blended whisky, that being Dewar’s White Label.
The distillery fully subscribes to the Goodrum Myth of pretty distillery = pretty malt whisky, however the distilleries penchant for the use of caramel slightly marred the distillery released 12 year old, but thankfully not the rather magnificent 21 year old. With the re-launch of the range in 2014 caramel appears not to no longer being used in the 12 year old and now the beautiful herbal, honeyed character of the whisky shines through.
Given that White Label sells over 30 million bottles a year and is comfortably in the top ten blended whiskies sold in the United States, there is very little sold to the Independent Bottling companies, although Gordon & MacPhail’s appears to have a fair amount of casks as it is a regular bottling in their Connoisseurs Choice range. I have to say that it is one of their most consistent bottlings in that range and to date I haven’t tasted a poor bottling, with the pick of the bunch being the 20 year old, which was bottled in 2011. A.D Rattray have also released a couple of rather good single cask bottlings over the years as well.
So, an overall score of B+ is pretty good by my calculations. Now the distillery have dropped the use of caramel, maybe it will it will eventually merit an A
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