Glenfarclas The Family Casks 40 Years Old 1966

A distillery release of Glenfarclas, a 40 year old, from 1966, cask 4177, at 51.5%, 514 bottles in all. Glenfarclas is a Speyside single malt matured almost wholly in sherry casks from Jerez. Its six stills are the largest in Speyside and among the very few still fired directly, now by gas. It draws on that deep inventory for the Family Casks, single vintages reaching back to the 1950s.

It was distilled to a rich, generous cut, building a deep malt of dried fruit and dark sugar. Maturation came in an Oloroso sherry cask, layered over the full Glenfarclas make. Ethereal and fragile, the decades draw it to a resinous, waxy depth of dried fruit, treacle and old oak. Active wood drives the maturation, the cask deep in the malt. Vanillin and oak lactones from the wood lend vanilla and a soft coconut over the fruit. Years in oak deepen the spirit to a darker gold, the body growing rounder and more resinous with time.

Bottled at a cask strength 51.5%, it is deep and concentrated. A deep, dark sweetness, with dried fruit, fig and walnut from the cask. It is full and fruity, the spirit carrying the cask. A long finish carries raisin, chocolate and a treacle. This is the family sherry malt of Ballindalloch.