Scotch Review #100: Glenfarclas 25 Year

Distillery: Glenfarclas

Region: Speyside

ABV: 43%

Age: 25 years.

Price: $150

Color: 0.9, Amontillado Sherry. Natural Color and Non-Chill Filtered.

Nose (according to the wife): This one smells like it’ll taste really good! There’s a bunch of fruits in here, the noticeable ones are dark cherries and red grapes. There’s more than a hint of sherry influence as well.

Palate: Surprisingly thin mouth feel. It’s fairly sweet and rather smooth. There a bit of a sherry oak, candied orange zest and a hint of vanilla buttercream frosting. With some water, the mouthfeel thickens up a bit and the orange zest becomes a little more like orange marmalade with the rinds in it.

Finish: Medium in length. This one finishes on the warm side with some all spice, oak, and a bit of the malt coming through.

Conclusion: Scotch review #100! Thank you again to everyone who has read these ramblings of mine. I picked this one up on a bit of a whim given how unlikely it would be for me to see another one of these here in Omaha. Glenfarclas for me has always been a series of very well made, straight-forward, sherry heavy whiskies and this isn’t any different. It’s a very good dram, the nose is fantastic and then the palate has some wonderful interactions of citrus and sherry followed by a nice finish. I will have to say that this isn’t as much of an improvement on some of the younger options as I would have hoped. I would have hoped for a little more complexity and a few more layers of flavors. Still, for the price, it’s a fairly decent value if you want to try something on the older side of things (a 25 year old distillery bottling that isn’t over $400? That’s hard to find). Would I buy another bottle? Maybe.

Final Score: 85.

Scotch Whisky review #100, Speyside Whisky Review #40, Whisky Network Review #131

Scoring Legend:

• 96-100: The perfect dram, nectar of the gods.
• 90-95: Near perfect, there is something truly special about this whisky.
• 85-89: Amazing, will always try to keep a bottle of this in my collection (if feasible).
• 80-84: Very Good, maybe only one minor nitpick about the whisky keeping it here.
• 75-79: Good, quite enjoyable to drink.
• 70-74: Solid, wouldn’t go out of my way to get it.
• 60-69: Meh, still drinkable.
• Below 59: If you have a bottle of this, start cooking with it instead.