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Kensington Wine Market's 2023 Whisky Calendar UBER EDITION Day 9 - Glenfarclas Family Cask 1990

Posted on December 9, 2023

by Evan

Many of us are very familiar with Glenfarclas as a distillery and the story of the Grant family behind it. The distillery has been owned by the Grants for six Generations now. To keep things simple for the rest of us to remember the family history, all six patriarchs of the family have been named John or George. The current face of the distillery is John. The family has owned the distillery for more than 150 years. 

What was Glenfarclas selling for their core range ten, fifteen, and twenty years ago? The same bottles as they have today. Glenfarclas’ core range consists of the 105 Cask Strength12-year-old15-year-old (which was in the 2019 KWM Whisky Calendar), 17-year-old21-year-old (which was also in the 2019 KWM Whisky Calendar), 25-year-old30 year old, and 40-year-old.

This doesn’t even take into account the impressive slew of Family Cask single vintage releases that at one point included every year between 1954 and 2002! Style-wise, they are still sherry-cask-focused for the entire range. No playing around with cask finishes or experimenting with peat here.

The Grant's see themselves as curators of Glenfarclas Distillery for future generations of their family. They want to make sure that what has been built remains, so they don’t make big decisions solely based on the boom-and-bust ecosystem of the whisky industry. Change is great, and change is fun, but it is refreshing to find a family and a distillery that doesn’t change everything based on the whims of trends and shareholders.

Going legal in 1836 and run by the Grant Family since 1870, Glenfarclas as a brand has been the very model of consistency for quite a long time. This unshaking persistence is refreshing compared to the vast and often confusing changes other Scotch Whisky labels have gone through over the past decade or more. One popular brand has shifted from age statements to colour codes and is now back again, but not the same as it once was. It can be difficult to be a fan of a brand that can't even maintain a core range well. That is not something that you have to worry about with Glenfarclas.

Glenfarclas as a brand has been important to me for quite a while. It was my first introduction to selling whisky. Years ago I would pour Glenfarclas at festivals, sometimes alongside George Grant himself. I had the chance to visit Scotland and the distillery for the first time in October of 2019, and it made me fall in love with the whisky all over again.

Back to today's dram: This 1990 vintage single cask is from the Glenfarclas Family Cask range. This is a single ex-Sherry butt bottled for the Summer 2022 release of the series. It is bottled at a cask strength of 51.3%. Let's dive in!

Glenfarclas Family Cask 1990 - Summer '22 Release – 51.3%

Evan’s Tasting Note

Nose: Earl Grey Tea, Liquorice Tea, blueberry pie, raisins and dates, a touch of mint and clove, and hot chocolate.

Palate: Very concentrated, like a balsamic reduction. Deep, dark sherry, dark chocolate, molasses, walnut liqueur, more black licorice, and tiramisu with a double espresso on the side.

Finish: Lengthy. Dark and rich dried fruit notes and chocolate plenty of dry oak and spice.

Comment: Classic big sherry Family Cask Glenfarclas. Very, very few distilleries can pull of a whisky like this!

I had doubts in my mind about this being bigger than the Tobermory we had yesterday, but it wasn’t even close. The Glenfarclas blows the Tobermory out of the water when it comes to sherry cask influence.

Could we possibly have a bigger sherry bomb tomorrow? Stay tuned!

Cheers,
Evan
evan@kensingtonwinemarket.com
Facebook & Instagram: @sagelikefool

You can find all blog posts for the UBER EDITION of Kensington Wine Market’s 2023 Whisky Calendar Here

This entry was posted in Whisky, Whisky Calendars, KWM Whisky Calendar 2023 UBER EDITION

 

 

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