Glenfarclas Christmas Edition 2025 10 Years Old 2014

A 10 year old Glenfarclas, a distillery bottling, from 2014, at 46%. Glenfarclas, the glen of green grass, is a richly sherried Speyside single malt. Its spirit is matured almost wholly in sherry butts brought up from Jerez. It draws on that deep inventory for the Family Casks, single vintages reaching back to the 1950s. Its slow, cool dunnage maturation loses very little to the angels each year. It has been run by six generations of the Grant family, one of Scotch whisky's last truly independent houses.

It was distilled in copper pot stills, the direct fired stills lending a nutty depth. It was matured in an Oloroso sherry cask, the wood working deep into the malt. By the integrating teens the raw notes fade and esters build, the rich spirit growing rounder and darker. 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.

At 46% it is smooth and rich. Orange, raisin and a treacle edge, with dried fruit, fig and walnut from the cask. A dark chocolate and a soft oak give it weight. A long finish carries raisin, chocolate and a treacle. This is a deep, sherried Speyside single malt.