Glenfarclas Christmas Single Highland Malt 29 Years Old 1966

Glenfarclas from the distillery, a 29 year old, from 1966, cask 6551, at 51.2%, 324 bottles in all. Glenfarclas is a deep, dark Speyside malt of dried fruit, nut and spice. 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. Its whiskies are bottled at their natural colour, without chill filtration.

It was run slowly off the spirit still, building a deep malt of dried fruit and dark sugar. Ex-Bourbon casks held it, the American oak lending vanilla and a light honey. In the oxidative, evaporative years the spirit concentrates to dried fruit, dark chocolate and a waxy, resinous depth. The full bodied spirit takes active sherry wood well, carrying its dark sugars through the years. The cool, slow dunnage ageing loses little to evaporation, the spirit holding its depth.

Bottled at a cask strength 51.2%, it is deep and concentrated. A deep, dark sweetness, lifted by a sweet oak. Beneath it run dried fruit, dark sugar and a warm spice. A long finish carries raisin, chocolate and a treacle. This is a deep, sherried Speyside single malt.