Glenfarclas 60 Years Old Cask #1672

A 60 year old Glenfarclas, a distillery bottling, from 1953, cask 1672, at 43.3%, 360 bottles in all. Glenfarclas is a richly sherried Speyside single malt, run by the Grant family since 1865. It holds some sixty eight thousand casks on site in dunnage warehouses, with stock from every year since 1953.

Run slowly off the spirit still, 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. Active wood drives the maturation, the cask deep in the malt. The wood frames the spirit without ever stripping the full Speyside body. Vanillin and oak lactones from the wood lend vanilla and a soft coconut over the fruit.

Bottled at 43.3%, it is rounded and full. A rich, sherried sweetness, with dried fruit, fig and walnut from the cask. The body is full and rich, the fruit deep and dark. A deep finish ends on dried fruit and a dark chocolate. This is the family sherry malt of Ballindalloch.