Glenfarclas 8 Years Old (40%)

An 8 year old Glenfarclas, a distillery bottling, at 40%, a festival bottling. Glenfarclas is a Speyside single malt matured almost wholly in sherry casks from Jerez. It holds some sixty eight thousand casks on site in dunnage warehouses, with stock from every year since 1953. Its water rises from the granite of Ben Rinnes, above the distillery at Ballindalloch.

It was distilled to a rich, generous cut, shaping a rich Speyside body with real weight. It rested in ex-Bourbon oak, oak lactones lending a creamy vanilla. In these extractive early years the oak gives vanillin as vanilla and lactones as coconut over orchard fruit and a dark sugar. 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. The wood frames the spirit without ever stripping the full Speyside body.

At an approachable 40% it is soft and fruity. A deep, dark sweetness, lifted by a sweet oak. Fig, honey and a dark chocolate fill the middle. A long finish carries raisin, chocolate and a treacle. This is a Speyside single malt of real standing.