Whisky Tasting: Glenfarclas

Wednesday saw a new band of soon-to-be merry mates head to Regional Wines. Nick and Jonny from work joined me at the Glenfarclas vertical tasting. Yeah get ya jokes out now...go on...finished? good.
This meant we had tastings of the 10, 12, 15, 17, 21, 25 and 30 yo bottlings. Ohhh yeah baby. I can't recall having had a Glenfarclas before but this was interesting and I'm glad I went. So the reviews, Glenfarclas is a Speyside malt which at least gave me a rough idea what to expect, and this time I made reasonable tasting notes.

Oh and I also got 7 out of 7 for my picks (as its a blind tasting) which I'm inordinately proud of.

10yo 105 60% Cask strength : nose: caramel, maple syrup; palate: huge taste, caramel notes and massive finish. I gave it 9/10, and at $100NZ how can you say no, especially as it's a 1L bottle at cask strength. Go buy it.
12yo 43% nose: sherry, iodine, raisins; palate: hot sherry pepper; finish: mid-long, vanilla. This one didn't live up to the nose, a bit of a disappointment 7/10
15yo 46% nose: big, sweet, cucumber; palate: smooth; finish: smokey and short. Again disappointing, the taste didn't live up to the nose, not much was happening in this one. 8/10
17yo 43% nose: young vanilla; palate: smooth and oily; finish: short and citrus again not really delivering. 7/10
21yo 43% nose: meh, kinda like cough mixture, ?sherry palate: very very smooth, citrus, finish short 7/10
25yo 43% nose: strawberries, nice, lovely palate: smooth and interesting; nose: light and lingering 8/10.
30yo 43% nose: plum lots of wood; palate: excellent caramel; finish: butter and long. 9/10. Wonderful.


I was quite disappointed with the younger ones (aside from the 10yo) they promised lots and delivered very little. Nothing much was happening in them. Pricewise all $100ish so would strongly avoid these. I know the reviews above may not suggest it, but the 21 and 25yo whiskys were lovely. Very very light and drinkable. I described them as breakfast whiskys which, although ridiculed, was agreed as a good description. The 30yo was great, but at $420 a bottle no better than the Brora and the Edradour (my benchmarks) and indeed didn't have the complexity of either. Save your money.

A very very nice tasting, all of them were very drinkable (as shown by me finishing all of them) and two of them were excellent (10yo and 30yo).

Rumours abound that next tasting is Edradour...ooohhhhhh yippee! Although there isn't much chance they'll have the 24yo's.

Love, B