Aberfeldy 12yo
Official Bottling | 40% ABV
Score: 4/10
Some Promise.
TL;DR
It is what you think it is
Does Everything Always Have to Be Engaging? (Yes)
I knew, when I clicked the button to add it to the basket, that this whisky wouldn’t wow me. I knew that it would fail to deliver in smell and taste.
I still bought it.
Aberfeldy whisky is something I’ve never really looked at seriously or considered buying purely because of the same reason that Jura is avoided by most; no-one speaks highly of it. Aberfeldy seems to be held in the same regard as most supermarket blahs - Glenlivet, Glenfiddich, Aberlour et al; the stuff that people who don’t really care much about the journey of whisky buy, instead requiring the suggestion of sweetness, the whiff of oak and the absence of heat, spice or anything that might cause blood to rush unceremoniously to the head.
This Aberfeldy 12 year old arrived alongside the other three bottles of whisky I bought at the same time from The Whisky Shop Dufftown (WSD). I chose this shop because of a Glen Elgin, bottled by Berry Bros. as a WSD exclusive and lauded by many in Whiskyville as excellent. I’d been tempted at the time it was released but was on another warpath. Seeing it again recently made me want it and, being in the right place to do so, jumped at the chance.
Then I saw a Berry bottling of single cask Geery finished for 2 years in Oloroso and jumped at that too. In fact the Geery was sold out once my order had gone through, meaning I managed to grab the last bottle. Then I saw a bottle of Old Pulteney Huddart and remembered brand ambassador Stuart Baxter mentioning it was his favourite when he featured on the vPub. I won a bottle of Old Pulteney SMWS in November’s auction and it was like most other SMWS bottlings these days - buttery and strangely uniformly SMWS, so wanted to try Pulteney from the Original Source.
So why the Aberfeldy? Curiosity mostly - it was there, I saw it and thought ‘why not’? I took a leaf out of my own book of Jura and reasoned that, although most rate it slightly higher than a slap in the face, many rarely speak of it and so, if I am to know either way, I need to try it. I could go to the pub and order a dram, but drinking in pubs or distillery shops or at parties is always skewed for me. To properly assess whether or not I like a whisky I prefer to do it at my own pace, with my small selection of whiskies to pair it against and see how it holds up. And it’s cheaper to do it this way too, even if it means a nearly full bottle of whisky remains on my shelf. At £36 it’s not going to be the worst decision I’ve ever made. That mantle is still held firmly by Tomatin.
Review
Aberfeldy 12yo, Official Bottling, Batch 2905, ‘Limited Bottling’ - 40% ABV
£36 widely available.
Score: 4/10
Some Promise.
TL;DR
It is what you think it is.
Nose
Soft and sweet. Nice biscuits. Quite vegetal - pinks and purples. Chalky. Light honey.
Palate
Light, toffee and spiced biscuits. Sugar. Honeycomb. Cinder toffee.
The Dregs
Once opened and drammed for a few glasses, the overwhelming experience was that of it being fine. It goes down easy, makes little fuss, delivers some cinder toffee, honeycomb and some sweet woody things, and that’s it. It’s very clear why most exciters place this alongside other 40% drams for smell and taste because, well, it’s not very challenging.
However, when I was deciding what dram to take with me to the Lowlands over the weekend, I reached for this. My old man used to love whisky, or maybe he just liked it and loved the social aspect. Now he rarely drinks whisky unless I’m down, and even then he struggles with it. The last dram I took down was the Mossburn Foursquare and it took him ages to get through it, dousing it with water (so was I) until it was a watery mess. “Not worth the price, that one son”.
I have tried various whiskies with him and each time he’s not really enjoyed them that much - usually cask strength or fiddly, he thinks they’re okay but nothing special. I found a bottle of Tobermory 12yo that I gifted to him two Christmases ago, still in his garage half-full.
I brought out the bottle of Aberfeldy after dinner on the day we arrived and asked if he fancied one. He said he would, but with water in it - perhaps it's my fault that he expects the whiskies I bring to require fiddling, but I said that he should try it first before deciding to kill it with water. He did try it sans H2O and he really, really enjoyed it. So much so he asked for another. And another. And I joined him, despite the Tobermory giving me the side-eye. We chatted, we talked about politics, about the wealth imbalance amongst many other things, and the whisky just kept going in the face and being replenished. Then we all went to bed, Dad well on the way and me contented, but very far from hazy. The benefits / drawbacks of being a regular 46%+ drinker.
Lying in bed I realised for the first time that some whiskies should play second fiddle to spending time with someone. I’ve always gravitated towards whisky drinking, in company, being an opportunity to open eyes to ‘better’ whisky and that, with my exciter bottle of naturally presented whatsits, they’ll get some genuine pleasure from whisky instead of mediocrity. But the past few times I’ve done that with Dad, he’s not enjoyed it at all. Maybe it’s a generational thing, or maybe it’s someone on the off-ramp of whisky in their retirement years, but this Aberfeldy fit the bill perfectly for the three nights I was staying with him.
Let’s not get all excited here. This is not whisky to buy if you want to find something new. It’s not whisky to buy when you want to expose a fringe whisky candidate to the gateway of whiskyland. It’s not whisky to cherish or promote or sing about. But it was a whisky used as machine oil for the Dad engine. This is a Dad whisky, and that makes me like it a little bit more.
For me it’s very much inert and close to Aberlour Triple Cask, although there is that nice honeycomb and cinder toffee note, so some promise in there that raises it above the disaster of the ATC. I’ve since Googled to see if there’s such a thing as Aberfeldy single casks, and there are some available on the market through Independent Bottlings, as well as some older OB Aberfeldys that command quite the sum. Maybe it’s the same deal as Jura - IB’s are the way to go? I’d love to know if you’ve had any banger Aberfeldy; I remember at last year’s Fife Whisky Festival Aberfeldy being in attendance and having an ‘under-the-table’ bottling of 40yo that we tried to sample, because it was apparently astonishing, but by the time we got there it was gone.
In conclusion then, this 12 year old is 40%, coloured, filtered and nearly the same price as the Tobermory 12 that was sitting in Dad’s garage (that I then went on to rinse, sorry Dad - note to self, buy some more Tobermory 12), or many other enthusiast positioned bottlings. They’re all much more engaging than this Aberfeldy 12 and far more worthy of your pennies…but it wasn’t a stinker and it didn’t cost me £75. Worth trying definitely, if only to know where it sits in the vast plains of whisky, but I’ll leave my Aberfeldy OB journey there for now.
I left the bottle with Dad to enjoy on his own time…penance for killing his Christmas present.
Score: 4/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. DC
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