Staying with friends at the Moness resort, barely a mile away from Aberfeldy Distillery, it would have been almost criminal not to head there for a visit. The three of us embarked on the Cask Tasting Tour (essentially the main tour with the added opportunity to taste a whisky straight from the cask in the warehouse).
Despite being relatively small, it's obvious that a huge amount of thought and effort has gone in to creating a full visitor experience at Aberfeldy Distillery. Starting off with a short film of the history of Dewar's, we then took a look around the museum before heading to the bar for our first dram.
On offer was Dewar's White Label, Dewar's 12 yrs, Aberfeldy 12yrs and Craigellachie 13 yrs. I opted for Dewar's 12 yrs, as, genuinely, it was the only one of the four I'd never previously tried.
Although currently in silent season, our guide, Zoe, then took us on a great tour of the distillery finishing in the warehouse. For me, this is usually the best bit. Here we tried an Aberfeldy 1988 at 52% straight from the cask. Thankfully, Zoe's skills with the valinch resulted in some very healthy measures. As it was baltic in the warehouse, we took our drams back to the bar to enjoy them. For a 28 year old whisky, the oak was surprisingly subtle.
The distillery's 'bottle your own' whisky was a cask from 2001 at £80. It had greater notes of honey and heather than the previous dram but had a certain sharpness towards the finish which didn’t really suit my palate. Therefore, as well as a bottle of Craigellachie 17yrs, I opted to buy some Dewar's 12 yrs. It was, after all, the day that Donald Trump had won the US presidential election and, with Dewar's being the best selling whisky in the USA, we needed an appropriate dram with which to drown our sorrows that evening.
