Five years is not long enough.

This is an odd one, Aberlour, that sherried middle of the road and dependable whisky did something in the 70s and 80s for the Italian market that looked like Chardonnay and tasted like, well, we’ll got onto that.

On the nose there’s not a lot going on, at least not a lot of nice things. Thin, solvents of undisclosed heritage, woody, cool and flat, faint honey. To be fair I wasn’t expecting much but it delivers much less that perhaps I was hoping for. Those 5 years in oak barrels would have been better served, perhaps, in much better barrels. It smells tired, you kind of get the feeling that these are well used bourbon barrels at the end of their useful life, personally I think they’d be better used as firewood.

In the mouth it doesn’t really get any better. The arrival is bitter, woody, there’s whiffs of lemon oil, it’s drying and thin. The best comparison is calvados, not the most appealing of drinks to liken anything to. The lack of good casks (or ones with a bit of get up and go) in the production is immediately apparent, it’s ok but lifeless, there’s no vanilla notes, no bourbon characteristics, it’s just woody whisky. Young, woody whisky.

I’m glad I tried it, it’s always good to try something new but it’s an unloveable dram. Maybe if you’re an Italian chap that loves Grappa then this will push all the right buttons and tantalise the palate, but for a scotch drinker, this is and enjoyable oddity, an insight to how different countries tastes define their culinary landscape but that’s all.