Glenfarclas Heritage CS

Glenfarclas from the distillery, at 60%, 687 bottles in all. Glenfarclas is a Speyside single malt, the house behind the pioneering 105 cask strength. Its whiskies are bottled at their natural colour, without chill filtration. Its water rises from the granite of Ben Rinnes, above the distillery at Ballindalloch. It draws on that deep inventory for the Family Casks, single vintages reaching back to the 1950s. It holds some sixty eight thousand casks on site in dunnage warehouses, with stock from every year since 1953. It has been run by six generations of the Grant family, one of Scotch whisky's last truly independent houses.

The spirit was distilled to a rich, generous cut, for a weighty, nutty spirit the sherry then deepens. Ex-Bourbon casks held it, the American oak lending vanilla and a light honey. Without an age statement, a dark sugar and dried fruit point to good years in cask. The full spirit deepens with time, the cask drawing out its darker register.

At a natural 60% it is full and rich. Raisin, chocolate and a warm spice, lifted by a sweet oak. A baked apple and a warm cinnamon lift the middle. The finish is rounded, dark and spiced. This is a rich Speyside malt of dried fruit and nut.