Glenfarclas 22 Years Old

A 22 year old Glenfarclas, a distillery bottling, at 45.8%, 2400 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 has been run by six generations of the Grant family, one of Scotch whisky's last truly independent houses.

Worked unhurried through the stillhouse, the direct fired stills lending a nutty depth. It was matured in an Oloroso sherry cask, the wood working deep into the malt. In the oxidative, evaporative years the spirit concentrates to dried fruit, dark chocolate and a waxy, resinous depth. Vanillin and oak lactones from the wood lend vanilla and a soft coconut over the fruit. The full bodied spirit takes active sherry wood well, carrying its dark sugars through the years.

Bottled at 45.8%, it is rounded and full. Orange, raisin and a treacle edge, with dried fruit, fig and walnut from the cask. A baked apple and a warm cinnamon lift the middle. The finish is long, rich and spiced. This is a richly sherried Speyside single malt.