Aberlour 12yo Double Cask
Official Bottling | 40% ABV
Score: 5/10
Average.
TL;DR
Solid, reliable, but ultimately average
Whisky for the sofa?
One of the things that I love, as both a writer and a reader of Dramface, is the sheer depth and breadth of the expressions that we review.
The Dramface team spans the globe and our tastes in whisky span the flavour map. It’s not unusual to check in here in the morning to find a review for a bottle that I’ve never tasted and, in some cases, may never get to taste.
Take, for example, February’s output. We saw reviews of American single malt, a Canadian four-way review, and a 34yo grain whisky - alongside fifteen expressions of scotch from many of the better known distilleries, and even a bourbon.
This breadth of content is only possible when you have multiple writers, with differing levels of experience, in different parts of the world, and all at different stages of their individual whisky journeys. More importantly, it’s only possible when you have writers reviewing whiskies that they are buying themselves, with their own hard earned cash.
Think about it like this: if Dramface existed to kowtow to the industry, or to lobby for freebies – or if the site was funded by sponsorships and affiliate links or a desire for click-throughs – then it’s likely that you would see the pages here stuffed with the usual supermarket staples and little else.
There are, after all, a lot more people trawling the internet looking for reviews of Glenfiddich or Macallan than there are people looking for, say, a cask strength Tormore, or a Linkwood from an obscure indy bottler. If the sole purpose of this website was to make money via attracting traffic and people clicking an affiliate link, it would make sense to review ubiquitous expressions from the bigger distilleries.
That’s not what Dramface is about, though. The general idea here is that we buy our own whisky and we write about whatever inspires us. That might be a particularly excellent expression, a particularly poor one, or anything in between. For me, though, it usually involves writing about whiskies that are bottled at 46% or more, which are non-chill filtered and which are of natural colour. These are, after all, the whiskies that I enjoy.
Like most enthusiasts, I spend my money wisely, and tend to avoid the supermarket staples, learning, as I have, that with their lower ABVs and tendency to eschew character for fear of offending the casual drinker or compromising those razor thin margins, I’ll likely find them lacking.
All of that being said; from time to time, I do open a bottle that can be found on the supermarket shelves, and when I do, I enjoy writing about it every bit as much as I enjoy writing about some of the more obscure bottles in my collection. Whisky is, after all, about discovery. It’s easy, when you view everything through the prism of enthusiasm, to overlook those expressions that might be considered ‘everyday’ whiskies.
I’m talking here about expressions that are generally bottled at a lower ABV and which are designed to appeal to casual drinkers. Distilleries that I associate with these sorts of whiskies tend to be those such as Tamnavulin, Glenfiddich, Aberfeldy and, of course, Jura. These are distilleries that we tend to overlook. To borrow a phrase from Aqvavitae’s YouTube channel; they’re what you might refer to as ‘the Ignored’, but they’re not necessarily bad whiskies. They’re often just not for us.
The whisky that I’m reviewing here is from one such distillery. Sort of. I say ‘sort of’, because despite Aberlour generally falling into the ‘meh’ category, they do have a history of making flavour-forward sherry bombs that pack a punch. Anybody who’s been into whisky for a while will probably have come across, or at least heard of, their A’bunadh expression. There was a time when it represented solid value, and arguably led the way in the cask strength sherry bomb category. Back in 2018, the distillery hiked the price though, and it fell off my radar. The point is that Aberlour has been known to release some bangers, despite much of their core range being fairly anodyne.
I mentioned earlier that, as somebody who pays for 99.9% of the whisky that I review, I tend to review stuff that’s well presented. That’s because I know that if a malt whisky is bottled at 46% and non-chill filtered, I’m much more likely to enjoy it. I don’t make money from reviewing whisky, so going out and buying a whisky that I’m probably not going to enjoy, just for the purpose of writing a review, isn’t really an option.
This being the case, I’ll state right away that I was given this bottle. A friend was gifted it and didn’t want it and he knew that I liked whisky, so he offered it to me for nothing. Despite the fact that it’s bottled at 40% ABV and likely coloured and chill-filtered, I approached it with a fairly open mind. I remember being gifted a bottle of AnCnoc 12 years ago, glancing at the ABV and thinking, ‘this won’t be something that will float my boat.’ I was wrong. I really enjoy AnCnoc 12, despite its poor presentation. In fact, it’s been a fairly regular staple in my collection ever since.
So, supermarket whisky can be rewarding on occasion, as long as you judge it on its own merits. It’s also good from time to time to poke your head out of the cask strength, flavour-forward rabbit hole and try some of the whiskies that most people are buying. Bottles like the one I’m about to review here do, after all, constitute the majority of single malt sales.
They’re also the sorts of whiskies that send us down those rabbit holes in the first place, so as much as we like to bang the drum for natural presentation and transparency (and believe me, I’m one of those people), it’s also worth remembering that these sorts of whiskies have their place.
This one can be had for anywhere between £40 to £50, sometimes less, if you can find it on offer. As such, I’ll be judging it as a £40 to £50 whisky.
Review
Aberlour 12yo, Double Cask, Official bottling, 40% ABV
Typically £40-50 and generally available.
To clarify – not that it needs clarifying – the reference to this whisky being ‘double cask matured’ refers to the fact that it’s been matured in both ex sherry and American oak casks, although it doesn’t specify whether the American oak casks were ex-bourbon or whether they were virgin oak. It would be nice to have this info, although it doesn’t particularly surprise me that it isn’t on the bottle.
Because let’s face it, it’s unlikely that the target audience of this whisky would care either way. As with Balvenie’s Double Cask, the whole ‘double cask’ thing is really being posited as some sort of USP. The reality is that a lot of whiskies are made from a vatting of different cask types these days, but I guess it makes a whisky stand out on the supermarket shelf if it has the words ‘double cask’ written on the bottle.
Either way, the info is limited. There’s also no mention of natural colour, either, and at 40% ABV it will most-definitely have been chill-filtered.
Score: 5/10
Average.
TL;DR
Solid, reliable, but ultimately average
Nose
The nose is soft, and takes a while to really get much from. That being said, it’s perfectly pleasant. I get toffee, vanilla ice-cream, toffee sauce, marzipan and wedding or Christmas cake icing. It’s fairly generic, but there’s nothing off-putting here.
Palate
The first words I wrote down when I was making tasting notes on this whisky were ‘mouthfeel is lacking.’ Viscosity in whisky is something that’s important, and this feels like it could do with more body. There’s just something noticeably thin about it. Granted, I’m used to drinking higher ABV whiskies that haven’t been chill-filtered, but even so, this feels watery. I don’t have a bottle of Ancnoc 12 on hand right now, but I’m fairly confident that if you sipped it in contrast to this Aberlour, the Aberlour mouthfeel would still be lacking.
Taste-wise, I get vanilla, red apple, some ice-cream soda and a touch of black pepper, especially in the finish. In terms of the sherry notes, I also get some Christmas cake, some nuts and some very milky coffee. It’s fairly basic, though. As you’d expect, this isn’t what you’d call complex.
The Dregs
What does strike me, though, is how well put together this whisky is. Granted, it’s lacking in character, but at the same time, it’s very dialled in. There’s nothing incongruous or unbalanced about it, and the symmetry between the sherry cask influence and the ‘American oak’ casks, is spot on. If they are using virgin oak, as opposed to ex-bourbon, then they’ve got the balance right. In the past, I’ve found that virgin oak can lead to a whisky tasting a bit over-oaked and overly spicy, but that isn’t the case here. There’s no question that this whisky is well executed, if a little over-engineered.
As is often the case, its limitations are down to the presentation. It’s really the mouthfeel – or lack of it – that stops me pouring a second glass. One of the benefits of sherry cask maturation is that it often imparts a nice, viscous texture. Here, though, that isn’t the case. Likely that’s down to the fact that it’s been chill-filtered and diluted.
Outside of whisky, I’m a big fan of TV. I used to be an avid reader – I did my degree in English literature and my master’s in writing, so literature is one of my passions in life – but as I get older, I find myself reading less and watching more TV in my spare time.
This is partly because life is so busy. I have two children, a mortgage, and a business to run; so, often, when I sit down at night for the first time at, say, 9pm, I just don’t have the energy or the focus to open a book. So, I put the TV on. I’m especially into box sets. The sorts of box sets that you can binge and get lost in.
If I had to list my favourite TV shows, quite a bit of that list would consist of the sorts of American dramas that you get on HBO. I love the Sopranos, the Wire, the first series of True Detective and Oz. These are gritty, complicated TV series with elaborate story arcs that you have to spend time following. They reward your patience in the same way that a good book, or indeed, a good whisky does.
There are times, though, when at the end of a long day, all I really want is to sit down in front of the TV, and chill out. I don’t want to have to think, I just want to put something on and be entertained. An Arnie classic, for instance – Total Recall, or the Running Man – or maybe something like Back to the Future. These big Hollywood Blockbusters from the 80s and 90s are something that I have a penchant for, and they were successful for a reason. They’re well put together, easily accessible and designed to appeal to as broad a swathe of people as possible.
Are they deep and meaningful? Not particularly. Does that mean they’re rubbish, though? Not if you judge them on their own merits.
I’m sure that by now, you know where this analogy is going. If this Aberlour were a TV show, it would be the sort of TV show that you stick on at the end of a long day at work, when you just want to watch something without having to think. It wouldn’t be absolute rubbish – you wouldn’t be embarrassed to admit in public that you watch it – but it wouldn’t be thought provoking TV that lends itself to analysis, either. It wouldn’t be something that you feel compelled to keep returning to, over and over again.
But that’s okay. Because whisky, like TV, doesn’t always have to be deconstructed and ruminated over. Sometimes, whisky is just there to be poured, drunk and enjoyed, rather than savoured and analysed. This is one of those whiskies. The mouthfeel is thin and it’s not particularly characterful, but it’s easy to drink, reasonably priced and very accessible. If you poured this for somebody who wasn’t really into whisky, they’d almost certainly enjoy it. Because there’s nothing here to dislike. Is it bland? A little, yes. It’s very well put together, though.
And so, it gets a 5, because it’s average whisky. As per the Dramface scoring system, it ‘sits comfortably in the middle of the pack’, doing just enough to make it engaging, but not enough to run the risk of offending anyone. I suspect that that’s exactly what the producer intended when they bottled it.
On the whole, then, I’m enjoying this one, although it’s not something I’d hand over money for. That said, it isn’t aimed at me. This is whisky that’s aimed squarely at the casual drinker, and in that respect, it does a solid job. It’s what I tend to think of as a ‘journeyman whisky’ – it gets the job done, without any real panache.
For a beginner, I think it would make a great introduction to sherry cask maturation. As an enthusiast, though, it’s one that you’ll probably want to pass on.
Score: 5/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. FMc
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