Glenfarclas Special Release 44 Years Old 1968

Glenfarclas from the distillery, a 44 year old, from 1968, cask 5241, at 54.4%, a festival bottling. Glenfarclas is a deep, dark Speyside malt of dried fruit, nut and spice. It draws on that deep inventory for the Family Casks, single vintages reaching back to the 1950s.

It was worked unhurried through the stillhouse, for the rich, sherried make Glenfarclas is known for. It was fully matured in an Oloroso sherry cask, the wood deep in the rich spirit. At a great, fragile age oxidation rules, sotolon lending maple and dried fig as beeswax and old leather linger. Long ageing turns the fresh notes towards date, prune and a dark, bittersweet chocolate. The full bodied spirit takes active sherry wood well, carrying its dark sugars through the years. Years in oak deepen the spirit to a darker gold, the body growing rounder and more resinous with time.

At a hearty 54.4% it carries real weight. A rich, sherried sweetness, with dried fruit, fig and walnut from the cask. The body is full and rich, the fruit deep and dark. The close is rich and dark, fruit over a warm spice. This is the family sherry malt of Ballindalloch.