Walk up the Aberlour range and the instinct is to read each dearer bottle as the better buy. This week it runs the other way.
The reflex in a bottle shop is to treat a climb in price as a climb in value, each step a little more whisky for a little more money. Measure each Aberlour against its crowd, though, the ten drams the model rates nearest it on flavour, and the pattern inverts. The entry bottle comes in level with its neighbours while the two above it pull well clear. Three bottles, and the brand's middle price this week is $140, a Speyside house trading firmly in three figures.
Aberlour sits in the heart of Speyside, at Charlestown of Aberlour on the river Spey, and it has built its name on sherry. Oloroso casks from Spain run through the whole range, and that is the thread tying these three together: the orchard-and-dried-fruit sweetness, the spiced warmth, the depth that sherry wood lends a malt. Keep that in mind as the prices climb, because what the extra money buys is more of the same influence, older and stronger, rather than a different whisky.
1/Some bottles are adored by a small circle. Aberlour 14 is the one a whole room gets along with — the dram you can pour for almost anyone and watch them settle in. Let me show you what I mean, because the numbers say it plainly.
2/Aberlour 14 sits among the ten closest bottles for the drinkers of 16 others. The typical bottle manages 9. So where most whiskies are a near-neighbour to a handful, this one keeps turning up close to far more people's favourites.
3/Pour Aberlour 12 Double Cask, Glenfiddich 15 or Glenfarclas 15 and you've already found someone who'd rate Aberlour 14 near the top of their own list. It speaks the same language as all three, which is a rare and easy kind of overlap.
4/In the glass it's rounded and welcoming: jammy peaches, marzipan, vanilla and toffee, with orange cake and honey behind a little polished oak. Sweet and creamy to taste, all oranges and summer berries, then clove, candied ginger and milk chocolate.
The Macallan Sherry Oak 12 at $160, the youngest of the Sherry Oak line. A classic nose of sherry, Christmas cake, dried fruit and old leather. Smooth and full, with jaffa oranges and brittle toffee, then a long finish of spice and smoke. Aberlour 12 Double Cask at $113. Bourbon and sherry casks. Orange peel, banana, red apple and toasted nuts. Thin but intense, with chocolate and cooked apple. About $5.11 a pour at home, under a pint at the pub. This week the two come to $273 at Dan Murphy's, $283 at their usual prices, and $290 for the same two at Liquorland. A yes whichever way you lean.
Glenfarclas 15: Christmas cake in a glass. Dried fruit, toffee, a hint of leather, warming spice. Full-bodied and smooth, non-chill filtered. This week it's $185 at Dan Murphy's. The whole story's in this week's piece.
If you love Glenfarclas 15, I'd happily pour you a Tamdhu 12. At $126 it's about 68% of the Glenfarclas price, and for a Glenfarclas 15 drinker it gives you about 88% of what you already enjoy, with citrus, hazelnut and dry sherry. More on Glenfarclas 15 in this week's piece.
Hand a Tamdhu 12 drinker a Glenfarclas 15 and they'd pay about $87 for it, 69% of what their own bottle costs them. The sherry and dried fruit sit close enough to home. Who it suits: a sherried-malt drinker. More in this week's piece on the Glenfarclas 15.
Glenfarclas 15, all dried fruit and Christmas cake, is $7.28 a standard drink poured at home — the kind of pour you sit with rather than rush. This week's piece has the rest.
Like Glenfarclas 15? Aberlour 14 pours jammy peaches, marzipan and vanilla, then slips into milk chocolate and a whisper of coffee. For a Glenfarclas 15 drinker it gives about 88% of the ride at 76% of the price, $140 for members. More in this week's piece.
Glenfarclas 15 is $185 at Dan Murphy's this week, which is about where it usually sits. As a pour at home that works out to around $7.28 a standard drink, a touch over a $13 pint at the pub (roughly $6.28 a drink, since a pint holds about two). There are about 25 standard drinks in the bottle.
The bottle Aberlour is famous for asks the steepest premium on its own shelf this week. The plain 12 sitting next to it is the only one priced like its peers.
Aberlour puts three bottles on the shelf, and the one with the biggest number on the tag is the one asking the smallest premium over its neighbours. That is not how it usually goes.
Aberlour sells a whisky with no age on the bottle for $155, and its own fourteen-year-old for $160. Five dollars between them. Whatever you're paying for here, it isn't the years.
| bottle | region | latest ticket | read | window price | CE 360° mean | premium | shelf rank | per std drink | drink rank | content |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aberlour 12 Year Old Double Cask Single Malt Scotch Whisky | Speyside | $112.99 | observed | $105.00 | $97.25 | 7.4% | #38 of 79 | $5.11 | #41 of 75 | 2 |
| Aberlour 14 Year Old Scotch Whisky | Speyside | $159.99 | observed | $159.99 | $144.72 | 9.5% | #47 of 79 | $6.34 | #50 of 75 | 7 |
| Aberlour A'Bunadh Single Malt Scotch Whisky | Speyside | $154.99 | observed | $130.00 | $98.42 | 24.3% | #74 of 79 | — | — | 0 |