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At the tail-end of last year, John Dewar & Sons announced its intention to release proprietary bottlings from the malt distilleries that tend to only produce whisky for the company’s blends – think Dewar’s, naturally.

You can read more about that move in my piece on it here but the short and sweet of it is that it is a rather big undertaking. The new whiskies that have thus far been released include ones from Aberfeldy, and Craigellachie (check out my thoughts on those here) and now three new whiskies from Aultmore.

This latest one is, perhaps, the one I knew least of. I’d already tried a few single cask samples and bottlings of Craigellachie, and had visited Aberfeldy during the first Dramboree but Aultmore? Nope, not much on that one, although it has been released in the Flora & Fauna series, and as a 12 year old. As such, it was the one that intrigued me most when I heard about the push into single malts by John Dewar & Sons.

As background, the distillery originally started running in 1897 but closed in the early 20th century following the Pattison Crisis, which saw many distilleries go bankrupt. It briefly reopened, but was then forced to close again due to the First World War. In 1923, it was purchased by John Dewar & Sons, before being sold on a couple of years later once more. It was bought by them again in 1998. Interesting wee fact: it was steam powered for over 70 years, with electricity only coming to the distillery in 1969, right before a major renovation, which saw the distillery increase capacity from two to four stills.

So, how did these three new releases shape up? Here’s what I thought:

 
Aultmore 12: [...]