Glenfarclas The Family Casks 20 Years Old 2002

A distillery release of Glenfarclas, a 20 year old, from 2002, cask 3323, at 50.6%, 302 bottles in all. Glenfarclas is a Speyside single malt matured almost wholly in sherry casks from Jerez. Its whiskies are bottled at their natural colour, without chill filtration. 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 was run slowly off the spirit still, the direct fired stills lending a nutty depth. It was matured in an Oloroso sherry cask, the wood working deep into the malt. Through oxidative maturity the esters concentrate, the orchard notes turning to raisin, fig and a dark chocolate. Maturation runs slow and even in the dunnage warehouses at Ballindalloch. The full bodied spirit takes active sherry wood well, carrying its dark sugars through the years.

Bottled at a cask strength 50.6%, it is deep and concentrated. Raisin, chocolate and a warm spice, with dried fruit, fig and walnut from the cask. The body is full and rich, the fruit deep and dark. The finish is rounded, dark and spiced. This is a full bodied Speyside single malt of real richness.