Glenfarclas The Family Casks – Nico’s Choice 9 Years Old 2014

A 9 year old Glenfarclas, a distillery bottling, from 2014, cask 2009, at 60.2%, 301 bottles in all. Glenfarclas is a Speyside single malt from Ballindalloch, in the heart of Speyside. It holds some sixty eight thousand casks on site in dunnage warehouses, with stock from every year since 1953. Its six stills are the largest in Speyside and among the very few still fired directly, now by gas.

Worked unhurried through the stillhouse, for the rich, sherried make Glenfarclas is known for. A bourbon barrel held it, the wood adding a soft honey over the fruit. In these extractive early years the oak gives vanillin as vanilla and lactones as coconut over orchard fruit and a dark sugar. The wood frames the spirit without ever stripping the full Speyside body. 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.

Bottled at a cask strength 60.2%, it is deep and concentrated. Orange, raisin and a treacle edge, lifted by a sweet oak. A baked apple and a warm cinnamon lift the middle. It finishes long, full and fruity. This is a Speyside single malt of real standing.