#nipswap

This whiskey is double cask matured, both in American oak casks and in ex-sherry casks. Whiskies from both casks are blended together at a minimum age of 12 years to create the final bottling: not a unique practice, but still delicious.

Pours out a red-amber thanks to the sherry. Nice to stare at; better to drink.

Nose is sherry sweet -- very smooth, low impact, some vanilla flirting in. Simple but really nice. 

Sherry comes to the forefront again on the tongue, smoothing out into an almost buttery flavor in the mid-palate. Very clean throughout with a little spicing towards the finish, but not much.

The finish is warming, hardly no burn at all -- though the aftertaste is fairly short-lived. Sherry shows up at the very end again, rounding out the sip. Maturation in those casks did a lot of good for this bottle. 

This is a well crafted whiskey that doesn't want to dazzle with crazy beat-you-over-the-head peat smoke tones, but nor is it an underwhelming Speyside offering like Glenfiddich, etc. 

I found Aberlour 12 at Ball Square Fine Wines where it was on sale for $40. It usually lists around $47-$50 in the Boston area, which is a fine price to pay for such a good bottle, but not one that I personally would. (From there I'd rather pony up an extra $5 and go with a Laphroaig or Ardbeg, but maybe you don't like peat as much as I do.) Very good without any real complexity, and worth a try, especially for the Scotch neophyte. 89 points.