Aberlour 20 Year Old - AD Rattray - The Whisky Experience and The Whisky Shop - Single Cask

A much-loved Speyside distillery, Aberlour was founded in 1879 and was expanded to four stills in 1973, the year before the distillery’s parent company S. Campbell & Son was acquired by French drinks giants Pernod Ricard. Aberlour joined Chivas Brothers’ portfolio when Pernod bought Chivas in 2001, and in 2022 a major expansion plan was announced, with a new stillhouse that will double Aberlour’s capacity to just under 8m litres per year. 

Campbell & Son bottled official Aberlour single malts in the same chunky square bottle as their White Heather blend and these early bottlings from the 1960s and 1970s are still popular today, particularly those bottled at 50%. The acclaimed cask strength sherried Aberlour a’bunadh first appeared in the late 1990s and has been a mainstay of the range ever since. Independent Aberlour is occasionally bottled for the UK by Cadenhead’s, Douglas Laing and others.

A Dewar Rattray was originally founded as a spirits merchant and whisky blender by Andrew Dewar Rattray in 1868, and was acquired after his death by William Walker, whose daughter would go on to marry Stanley P. Morrison of Morrison Bowmore.  Their son Tim Morrison revived the A D Rattray company around the turn of the millennium, a few years after the Morrisons had sold Bowmore to Suntory.

A D Rattray are known for their Stronachie single malt, a sourced Benrinnes named after a famous defunct Highland distillery. Rattray has been independently bottling single malt Scotch whisky regularly since 2004, usually as individual casks bottled at full cask strength. The company also has a Cask Islay brand for anonymous Islay single malts bottled at 46%. In 2017 Tim Morrison founded the Clydeside distillery in Glasgow, which released its inaugural single malt in 2021.