Glenfarclas The Family Casks 30 Years Old 1990

Glenfarclas from the distillery, a 30 year old, from 1990, cask 5122, at 55.2%, 545 bottles in all. Glenfarclas is a Speyside single malt, the house behind the pioneering 105 cask strength. It holds some sixty eight thousand casks on site in dunnage warehouses, with stock from every year since 1953. It was licensed in 1836 under Robert Hay and bought in 1865 by John Grant for 511 pounds. Its whiskies are bottled at their natural colour, without chill filtration.

It was distilled to a rich, generous cut, for the rich, sherried make Glenfarclas is known for. An Oloroso sherry cask held it, drawing the rich spirit on over the years. At a great, fragile age oxidation rules, sotolon lending maple and dried fig as beeswax and old leather linger. Long ageing turns the fresh notes towards date, prune and a dark, bittersweet chocolate. The cool, slow dunnage ageing loses little to evaporation, the spirit holding its depth.

At a hearty 55.2% it carries real weight. Baked apple, honey and a dark chocolate, with dried fruit, fig and walnut from the cask. Fig, honey and a dark chocolate fill the middle. The finish is rounded, dark and spiced. This is a richly sherried Speyside single malt.