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A rarely seen
vertical collection of Aberlour
A’bunadh, one of the largest ongoing
whisky series of all time, has gone on
sale for £15,884.
Aberlour A’bunadh, the big sherried,
cask strength, batch release dram, has
been a popular dram with whisky
connoisseurs from the day the Speyside
distillery released the first batch and
by its very nature it offers whisky
drinkers a slightly different, big
sherry flavoured experience from batch
to batch.
Each batch of Aberlour A’bunadh has been
matured exclusively in Spanish Oloroso
sherry casks and bottled non
chill-filtered at cask strength, the
whisky is said to be based on the
contents of a bottle which was buried in
the foundations of the Aberlour
distillery still room back in 1898, it
was discovered in 1973 by workmen. After
those lucky workmen drunk a good portion
of the bottle the remainder was sent to
the Aberlour laboratory for analysis and
was recreated by the folks at Aberlour.
It was appropriately given the name,
A’bunadh, which is a Scottish Gaelic
word which loosely translates as
'original'.
The reason I mention it is a rarely seen
vertical collection of Aberlour
A’bunadh, one of the largest ongoing
whisky series of all time, has gone on
sale for £15,884 through whisky broker
Mark Littler Ltd, so if your pockets are
deep enough this is your chance to get
hold of an almost complete set to date.
The collection of Aberlour A’bunadh
available from Mark Littler Ltd is a
collection of 66 bottles, which was
built up over 10 years by Jon O'Connell
from York who first discovered the
renowned Speyside single malt whisky
after a chance encounter on a fishing
trip in Scotland.
O’Connell, a biologist, first fell in
love with the Aberlour A’bunadh whisky,
which was introduced in 2000 and
released in limited-run batches, after
enjoying a dram with a fellow fishing
enthusiast on Rothiemurchus lochs near
Aviemore. He then spent 10 years
collecting a bottle from every batch
ever made from auctions and whisky shops
across Europe.
Jon's collection also contains two
highly sought-after special edition
batch bottlings; the A’bunadh Silver
Label Millennium Edition, bottled in
1999 in preparation for the millennium
celebrations, and the Silver A’bunadh,
an extremely limited collection
consisting of only 37 bottles.
Jon O'Connell obviously had some will
power not to open and drink these over
the years, I recall buying two of each
bottle when the Aberlour A’bunadh batch
series launched, one for drinking and
one to put away but my will power only
lasted to around batch 10.
There has been some stunning batches
amongst the Aberlour A’bunadh releases
over the years, from my notes some that
were particularly good were: Batches 8,
14, 19, 20, 23, 26, 33, 39, 40, 53, 54,
61 and 63. In fact the majority have
been very good, just a pity they ramped
the price up for this cask strength
sherried dram, it is now around £80 for
the latest releases, I recall picking up early batches for around £25, if I
had only have known then what I know
now!
As I said above this 66 bottle Aberlour
A’bunadh collection has gone on sale for
£15,884 through whisky broker Mark
Littler Ltd, if your pockets are deep
enough then this is a chance to get hold
of a collection of more than a few
stunning whiskies that someone else has
put in the hard work to accumulate.
Of course you will still find the latest
Aberlour A’bunadh batch releases (I
believe they are now up to Batch 70) available from
specialist online whisky retailers such
as
The Whisky Exchange,
Amazon
and
Master of Malt
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