Aberlour-Glenlivet 8, 1965, Aquavitae, Rinaldi? Italian import, 50% abv.

The back label describes how Campbell's Limited is trying to protect it's customers from substandard Scotches, which is sort of funny once you see the "-Glenlivet" attached to Aberlour. Campbells (Distillery) Ltd. was actually the company White Heather and was a subsidiary of S. Campbell & Son Ltd. which was actually founded by Samuel Rosenbloom in 1933 under the inaugural name of Forbes McGregor & Co. Complicated huh? In 1945, S. Campbell & Son acquired Aberlour. Funny thing is, the originating practice of adding "-Glenlivet" to a distillery's name was due to the Glenlivet distillery producing better Scotch during the later half of the 19th century. Sort of like the practice of labeling Scotch "unblended" and bourbon as "bottled-in-bond". Both Aberlour and Glenlivet are under Pernod Ricard now.

Nose: initially wet old steamed lotus leaves, becomes quite vegtative after some time like freshly washed leafy greens, has that young wood in there too... I have a feeling I'm not going to enjoy this. After awhile I can smell salted meats and a good amount of honey, luckily that wet old steamed lotus leaves aroma takes a backseat from here on out.

Palate: smooth, cooling, generally honey sweet, calm, a little peppery in the front, bell pepper skin without the intense flavor, semi-meaty green vegetables, back palate has some smoke, generally sweet.

Finish: short, hints of smoke overlay the roof of my mouth, like honey drying on some bbqed pork but not the cantonese char siu type.

Dry glass: heated wax, red apple skin, baked bananas.

Wow, the nose and the palate don't correlate, but in this case it was quite a good match! Didn't appreciate that wet old steamed lotus leaves type of aroma, but the flavors were more in line with a sweet scotch than anything else. The sweet flavors were mostly honey based, balancing out the few other flavors in the background. I had my reservations on a 1965 scotch, but it has surprised me. Quality is there. Its smooth, tasty, slightly complex, multi-faceted, and reveals its inner flavors with time.

Grade: B+

Image courtesy of Eric Yee.

Eric Yee

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