Glenfarclas The Family Casks 35 Years Old 1982 Cask #2215

Glenfarclas from the distillery, a 35 year old, from 1982, cask 2215, at 55.5%, 203 bottles in all. Glenfarclas is a Speyside single malt from Ballindalloch, in the heart of Speyside. Its slow, cool dunnage maturation loses very little to the angels each year. It draws on that deep inventory for the Family Casks, single vintages reaching back to the 1950s. It has been run by six generations of the Grant family, one of Scotch whisky's last truly independent houses. It holds some sixty eight thousand casks on site in dunnage warehouses, with stock from every year since 1953.

It was distilled to a rich, generous cut, building a deep malt of dried fruit and dark sugar. It was matured in an Oloroso sherry cask, the wood working deep into the malt. Ethereal and fragile, the decades draw it to a resinous, waxy depth of dried fruit, treacle and old oak. The full spirit deepens with time, the cask drawing out its darker register.

At a natural 55.5% it is full and rich. A rich orchard sweetness and dark sugar, with dried fruit, fig and walnut from the cask. Dried fruit and a treacle sit behind the spice. A long finish carries raisin, chocolate and a treacle. This is the family sherry malt of Ballindalloch.