Aberlour Distillery, Speyside: Sherried and Spiced

Overview

Aberlour — from Obar Lobhair, “the mouth of the chattering burn” — sits in the pretty Speyside village of the same name below Ben Rinnes. Its whisky is warming, sherried and spiced, famous above all for the double-cask style and for the cask-strength, un-chill-filtered A’bunadh, a favourite of sherry-bomb lovers.

The history

Aberlour was founded in 1879 by James Fleming, a local banker and grain dealer, on a site by the Lour burn where St Drostan is said to have baptised converts a thousand years earlier. Fleming was a great benefactor of the village — he built its bridge and hospital — and the distillery he founded was rebuilt after a serious fire in 1898 by the noted distillery architect Charles Doig. It passed through several hands before becoming one of the flagship malts of Pernod Ricard’s Chivas Brothers.

The water & the land

Aberlour’s water traditionally came from St Drostan’s Well, fed by soft water off the slopes of Ben Rinnes down the Lour valley (modern production also draws on the Birkenbush and Target springs). Soft hill water and sherry-cask maturation give the whisky its rich, rounded character.

Aberlour has no clan founding of its own — it was a Victorian commercial venture, built on a feu of land granted by the Earl of Fife, the Duff family, who dominated this stretch of Speyside. The wider district was historically Grant country, the lands whose farms and burns supplied the whole whisky trade.

Visiting

Aberlour has a visitor centre in the old Gatehouse and runs an in-depth “Aberlour Experience” and Founder’s Tour, which should be booked ahead. It opens year-round with varying hours; check the website. The village itself, on the Speyside Way, is a lovely base for touring the region.

Nearby & more whisky

• Its Ben Rinnes neighbour: Glenfarclas
• More sherried Speyside: The Macallan
• The whole picture: Scotch whisky — regions, distilleries & the oldest of all

Sources

• Aberlour distillery — Wikipedia.
• Aberlour / Chivas Brothers; Scotchwhisky.com Whiskypedia.