Glenfarclas The Family Casks 31 Years Old 1983

A distillery release of Glenfarclas, a 31 year old, from 1983, cask 49, at 53%, 341 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 holds some sixty eight thousand casks on site in dunnage warehouses, with stock from every year since 1953.

It was worked unhurried through the stillhouse, giving a deep, full bodied Speyside spirit. Ex-Bourbon casks held it, the American oak lending vanilla and a light honey. At a great, fragile age oxidation rules, sotolon lending maple and dried fig as beeswax and old leather linger. The wood frames the spirit without ever stripping the full Speyside body. The cool, slow dunnage ageing loses little to evaporation, the spirit holding its depth. The full spirit deepens with time, the cask drawing out its darker register.

At a hearty 53% it carries real weight. Baked apple, honey and a dark chocolate, lifted by a sweet oak. Beneath it run dried fruit, dark sugar and a warm spice. The finish runs long, full and warming. This is the family sherry malt of Ballindalloch.