Glenfarclas 1988 Edition N°22

A 30 year old Glenfarclas, a distillery bottling, from 1988, at 46%, 3600 bottles in all. Glenfarclas, the glen of green grass, is a richly sherried Speyside single malt. It draws on that deep inventory for the Family Casks, single vintages reaching back to the 1950s. Its water rises from the granite of Ben Rinnes, above the distillery at Ballindalloch. It holds some sixty eight thousand casks on site in dunnage warehouses, with stock from every year since 1953.

It was drawn from a thick, heavy wash, giving a deep, full bodied Speyside spirit. It was fully matured in an Oloroso sherry cask, the wood deep in the rich spirit. At a great, fragile age oxidation rules, sotolon lending maple and dried fig as beeswax and old leather linger. Vanillin and oak lactones from the wood lend vanilla and a soft coconut over the fruit. The full spirit deepens with time, the cask drawing out its darker register.

At an approachable 46% it is soft and fruity. Orange, raisin and a treacle edge, with dried fruit, fig and walnut from the cask. Fig, honey and a dark chocolate fill the middle. Dried fruit, spice and a soft oak see it out. This is the family sherry malt of Ballindalloch.