Aberlour Distillery

Aber­lour is a dis­tillery of sin­gle malt Scotch whisky, located on Aber­lour town, Spey­side, Scot­land at the cross­ing of rivers Lour and Spey near Ben Rinnes. The Spey­side region is the most pro­lific whisky pro­duc­ing region in Scot­land, account­ing for over half of all of Scotland’s dis­til­leries. Spey­side whiskies are rec­og­nized for their “heather-honeyish” char­ac­ter, which is a prod­uct of the unique malt­ing processes, local cli­mate, and water sources.

Char­ac­ter

Aber­lour is par­tic­u­larly influ­enced by its water source, flow­ing from Ben Rinnes, through the local peat and gran­ite of the Lour val­ley and on to the dis­tillery. It picks up scarce min­eral deposits along its jour­ney result­ing in a nat­u­rally soft water. This water is used in all stages of pro­duc­tion, and lends Aber­lour its smooth, del­i­cate character.

Bot­tlings

The whisky comes in a vari­ety of ages includ­ing a 10, 12, 15, 16 and a rare 30 year old 1970 vin­tage malt, as well as a cask strength release (A’bunadh) with no age state­ment. Sev­eral vin­tages and inde­pen­dent bot­tlings are also avail­able. Most of the vari­ants are aged for a time in Amer­i­can ex-bourbon casks (a stan­dard for most sin­gle malt Scotches). Aber­lour also releases a range of malts that, after age­ing in bour­bon casks, are trans­ferred to casks that have been used pre­vi­ously to mature vari­eties of for­ti­fied wines. This process is known as fin­ish­ing, and Aber­lour offers whisky fin­ished in sherry and bour­bon. They also pro­duce a line of sherry fin­ishes specif­i­cally for the French market.

His­tory

Although its labels read 1879, the Aber­lour dis­tillery was first founded in 1826 by James Gor­don and Peter Weir. The orig­i­nal dis­tillery, which was destroyed in a fire, was rebuilt in 1879 by James Flem­ing (1830–1895), and this is the date marked on the bot­tles. In 1898, a sec­ond fire con­sumed sev­eral of the dis­tillery build­ings and most of the whisky reser­voirs, but even­tu­ally the site was reconstructed.