Official vs Indy: Aberfeldy
Decadent Drinks release vs 21yo Official | Various ABV
Just for blends?
I’m happy to confess I’m on holiday while I write this. Alas not in Madeira, but Portugal, which Madeira is at least a part of.
I had hoped this would be a break where I could get more acquainted with Port, to help build my appreciation. There are plenty of bottles of Port available to buy; unfortunately though, though some of the local more back street restaurants don’t seem to have much variety in port other than a red or white option. I had envisaged a more extensive choice: Ruby, multiple age statements of Tawny, and some white in every establishment. And I had hoped a few Madeira wine samples would be possible, but it seems not; there is not a hint of Madeira anywhere, which doesn’t altogether surprise me. I think we’d need to travel to Madeira for that.
Thinking about my own restaurant experiences in my local Glasgow, it is similar of course. You might expect each to hold a comprehensive choice of whisky bottlings, but in fact that is almost universally not the case and there are often only four or five choices peaking at 43% ABV.
For us now, nights out on holiday tend to end a bit earlier to get our young daughter back to bed: which means more time relaxing on the balcony. Having learned my lesson that picking up decent whisky on holiday is going to be pretty much impossible, I have made sure that I have adequate provision with me.
I have multiple rubberised travel bottles and, on this occasion, I’m including a couple of Cadenhead's single casks (a particular Bourbon Cask Glenfarclas included in that which is novel and really enjoyable), some Thompson Brothers product, and of course the two Aberfeldys that I’m covering here.
I also made sure there was at least one good bottle I could pick up going through duty free – in this case the Bruichladdich 16 year old Organic, which is a great dram and the second bottle I have picked up in 2026, even if it was slightly dearer than the £62 I had to pay the first time: a bargain for sure - possibly a steal.
Aberfeldy follows a similar history to other distilleries originating in the 19th century. By the 1890s, Dewar's, the blenders from Perth, were shifting serious volumes of whisky, and they wanted to have a supply of malt whisky that they controlled. Construction started in 1896 on a site which had previously been home to the Pitilie Distillery, which closed in 1867. The choice of location was helped by the existence of a water source in the Pitilie Burn as well as a railway line close by. Casks went by direct rail link to the Dewar's warehouses in Perth – which continued to house the spirit until the 1960s.
DCL brought Aberfeldy into Scottish Malt Distillers in 1930, but for most of its life, you couldn't buy Aberfeldy as a single malt. Distillery bottlings were rare until Bacardi arrived, apart from a 1990s appearance in the Flora & Fauna range. Diageo was forced to sell John Dewar & Sons in 1998 through competition concerns of the US Federal Trade Commission, which is when Aberfeldy and four sister distilleries went to Bacardi along with the Dewar's brands.
Most of the spirit distilled at Aberfeldy still disappears into blends; it is a major component of Dewar's 12-year-old and White Label. For Aberfeldy single malt there have been a number of wine finishes from Madeira to Sangiovese. But there doesn’t seem to be much within the Aberfeldy range that is enthusing the more technical whisky-minded punter. I think I’ve tried a couple of drams but with no real recollection to drag me back to the brand.
Review 1/2
Aberfeldy 10yo, Decadent Drinks Equinox & Solstice Series, Autumn Edition 2023, second-fill ex-bourbon barrels, 48.5% ABV
£40 paid at auction, £88 RRP and still some available
Even at auction it's unusual to get your paws on a Decadent Drams bottle of anything for £40, so this appeared to be an absolute bargain to me. It is a small batch mix of two refill barrels of Aberfeldy, bottled in 2023 after 10 years in a second-fill bourbon cask.
The concept behind their Equinox and Solstice range is to produce seasonal single malt and blended whiskies that reflect seasonal shifts (bright/fruity for summer, deep/warming for winter). This was the Autumn 2023 bottling but my personal view is that it might have sat better in the Summer bottling series.
Interestingly, the artwork on the label was done by Ellis O’Connor who also went on to do the artwork for Torabhaig’s Sound of Sleat bottlings.
Score: 7/10
Very Good Indeed.
TL;DR
Good quality bourbon-cask, but less ‘autumnal’ and more summery
Nose
It has a real quality nose; lashings of apple, pear, grass, a bit of the over-ripe banana, some apricot, and a sweet molasses type aroma. All pretty standard ex-bourbon and refill-matured notes, but good.
Palate
It’s clean, bright and fresh – which I think was the entire intent that Decadent had with this one. There is a good vibrant mouth, loads of apple, pear, a bit of vanilla and caramel. A malty biscuit too.
It’s a medium finish, full bodied but smooth, a little bit on the waxy side.
The Dregs
This is a good dram; it is, as the concept suggests, bright and fruity. It’s a great summer dram - full stop. If someone poured you this blind you’d be pretty pleased with it - no real faults.
I am not sure there is much special about this beyond that, but there doesn’t need to be – it is just a good bourbon-matured whisky. I don’t see anything special about the Aberfeldy spirit that would help to differentiate or allow you to differentiate it from many others.
Score: 7/10
Review 2/2
Aberfeldy 21yo, Madeira cask finish, official release, 2023, 40% ABV
£95 paid at auction, north of £200 at retail and still some available
Madeira is a Portuguese fortified wine from the island of the same name, around 500km off the Moroccan coast in the Atlantic. Vines arrived with the first settlers in the 15th century, and the island became a provisioning stop for ships heading to the Americas and the East Indies, with wine loaded in "pipes" for the voyage.
Tinta Negra makes up most of production, alongside what are referred to as four noble varieties of grape. The wine is fortified with grape spirit, either during fermentation for sweeter styles or after it for drier ones, and then heated. Cheaper wines go through estufagem - at least three months in tanks at around 45–50°C. The premium examples are aged in a different way, by canteiro, sitting in cask in warm lofts for years. Both methods are believed to recreate what 17th and 18th century shippers stumbled on: wine that had crossed the tropics in a ship came back better than it left.
It’s not very often I have a bottle of 40% ABV ‘on the go’ and it almost certainly wouldn’t be my ordinary choice to take away as a holiday dram.
I have always been interested in knowing more about Aberfeldy and the Madeira cask option did seem to have potential to add a bit more complexity. There aren’t many Aberfeldy reviews on Dramface, a statistic which always tells its own story, since I highly doubt all the writers have missed a jewel in the form of Aberfeldy distillery. It seems that some of the newer wine cask releases from Aberfeldy have been at a higher 46%, but unfortunately not this one.
Score: 3/10
Disappointing.
TL;DR
Diluted to within an inch of its life
Nose
The nose seems a bit neutered but it does have the fairly predictable orange notes you would expect from Madeira. There is also some chocolate (dark), a bit of honey, apple and a touch of wood. No real alcohol on the nose, probably due to the ABV. Not a great omen.
Palate
It’s thin. That’s the only conclusion we can start with. It’s too diluted. You have to work like crazy to get any proper tasting out of it. Eventually you get notes of orange, honey, bit of caramel and vanilla. There is a little cinnamon and a wood note at the back end.
The finish is medium at best, probably better described as short if I’m honest; the finish is over so quickly I think I would struggle to claim any particular notes from it. It is a bit oily and definitely not drying.
You want it to have a thick, gloopy texture to match the orange and honey notes and it just is not there.
The Dregs
The nose gave hints as to what this could be but it’s diluted down so aggressively that you cannot get a proper handle on it. The liquid gives hints to the Madeira cask influence and it was not unpleasant in any way, not harsh or a badly put together whisky: it was just weak, diluted, and massively lacking in personality.
I found this difficult to score when the major flaw, at the risk of labouring it, is the ABV. To the point where I have had to go back and read the Dramface scoring guide again. I don’t think this meets the criteria of “some promise” that would have given this a 4/10 because it wasn’t that the whisky never quite came together as it should, no, it was a conscious decision to dilute the life out of it – and that throws it squarely into “disappointing” territory because it was made like this intentionally.
Anyone paying nearly £300 for this needs talking to; at £95 I think I need a word with myself as it is.
Score: 3/10
The Final Dregs
I think Aberfeldy could be an interesting dram at cask strength but they are a long way from that at present. The 21 year old could really be any age from 10 years on; it is weak and thin and arguably I would say a waste of 21 year old liquid in this form.
I wouldn’t buy another Aberfeldy at 40% and I’d have to think seriously about it even at 46%. On a proper cask strength example over 50% ABV it might be worth trying.
Any Decadent Drams release for £40 can be pretty much guaranteed to be worth that, but the base Aberfeldy spirit just doesn’t necessarily seem strong enough – which is probably why the RRP coming from Decadent was at the lower end of what they release at £88. At £40 of course I would buy this again; at £88 I’d probably choose to use that amount towards something more notable in the Decadent Drams range.
My suspicion is that there is nothing remarkable about Aberfeldy’s liquid. Perhaps all spirit from Aberfeldy is a bit lacklustre for single malt, maybe the wine cask releases are trying to get some personality into it – a shame they are doing that and then diluting it so massively. I guess I haven’t tried enough to firm up these views.
Let me know if you have.
Tried these? Share your thoughts in the comments below. CC
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What’s your own personal top distilleries?
At the point of this article’s publication, Aberfeldy does not currently appear in the Dramface Top 40.
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Other opinions on this:
Whiskybase:
Equinox & Solstice
Madeira OB 21yo
Got a link to a reliable review? Tell us.
