ABERLOUR is a registered trademark by Chivas Bros. > Pernod Ricard, France
Production at Aberlour
Marketing says: Aberlour use water from the St Drostan’s Well which is located on the grounds.
More real: several springs on the nearby Ben Rinnes are the water source.
The water that falls on the mountain Ben Rinnes is filtered through layers of peat before it reaches the well.
Since the mountain is made mostly of granite very few minerals are picked up during the process which explains why the water is
so soft. The water is neutral with a pH level of 7.
The cooling water is taken from the river Spey which runs close by.
The water temperature is continually monitored before it is released back into the river in order to avoid any unwanted effects on the environment.
The barley is bought from central malting companies and is slightly peated to less than 3 ppm. Aberlour buys 90 percent of their
barley in Scotland.
The mash tun is made from stainless steel and holds 12 tons.
The six wooden washbacks each hold 70 000 litres.
After the washbacks have been filled with the wort drawn from the mash tun eight 25-kilo bags of yeast are added to each washback.
After the 48 hour fermentation process
the wash has reached an alcohol level of approximately 8.5 percent.
The onion-shaped wash stills are heated with internal steam coils.
Each wash still holds 21,310 litres of wash.
The Low Wine that is the result of the first distillation has an alcohol content of 18 percent.
The two slightly smaller spirit stills are also steam-heated.
The Aberlour spirit stills start producing the ‘Heart of the run’ (the raw spirit that will be used for whisky) after about twenty minutes.
The Heart flows for approximately two hours and produces an average alcohol content of 70 percent.
The raw spirit is cut down with water to 63.5 percent before it is filled into bourbon and sherry casks.
The whisky is stored on site in six warehouses with a total capacity of 25 000 casks.
Bottling is done in Killwinning, Ayrshire.
The annual output of the Aberlour Distillery is 3 million litres.
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