Glenfarclas 1988/2018 Thomas Reid (46%, OB, sherry casks, 3600 bottles)
From an official series bottled for Germany. Colour: gold. Nose: extremely lovely. Lemons, honeys, Tunnock’s caramel wafers (and perhaps a cocoanut log or two as well) and this hugely attractive leafy, earthy sherry. With time the sherry character mushrooms (literally and figuratively) and out comes golden sultanas, some figs and muesli full of chopped dark fruits. Very pleasurable and easy going stuff. Mouth: lemony, fruity and full of milk chocolate, chopped almonds, fruit chutneys, apple pie and nutmeg. Some lemon meringue and custard as well. Dangerously easy, quaffable, softly sherried whisky. Kind of the epitome of Glenfarclas as most people probably consider it today I suppose. Finish: long, herbal, sweet, liqueurish, some resinous sherry, crystalised fruits and candied nuts. Comments: A perfect start to a session. And a very lush, sweet, fruity and easy Glenfarclas. Santa will be delayed in Germany this Christmas I expect...
SGP: 641 - 89 points.

Glenfarclas 1988/2017 Family Casks (53.3%, OB, cask #6986, sherry butt, 507 bottles)
Colour: gold. Nose: It’s one of these more austere 1980s style farclas. There’s a sense of sinew and leanness about it, but also some lovely notes of honey, pollen and wild flowers. In fact, given some time, it really starts to become this beautiful balance of ripe green fruits and chalky minerals. Some green tea and lemon peel emerge as well. With water: a bit of water really detonates the earthiness in this one, throws out dried herbs, minty chalk, camphor and old sweet wines. Mouth: spiced honey, baked plums, horse chestnuts, pear cordial, exotic spices, ointments, damson jam, prune eau de vie and mandarin liqueur. Really quite unusual and striking, but in a good way. Gets quite jammy with time. With water: again it becomes earthier, oilier and light notes of candle wax appear. Some tea tree oil, dried apple rings and hawthorn. Finish: rather long with notes of watermelon sweeties, cough syrups, lemon peel, lanolin and various cooking oils. Some marshmallow sweetness and getting increasingly herbal as well. Comments: All very good and with a compelling character which holds your attention very well.
SGP: 551 - 88 points.

Glenfarclas 1989/2017 Family Casks (52.4%, OB, cask #13055, sherry butt, 581 bottles)
Colour: deep amber. Nose: massive, sticky, sumptuous sherry! The kind that is almost becoming tarry! Notes of straw mats, leather, old furniture, stewed raisins, sawn wood, mulling spices, dry earth, cinnamon fireball sweeties and charcoal. Also some lean but hefty cured meaty tones. In time some red fruit jams and liqueurs emerge. One for sherry dafties. With water: more truffle oil, chopped tarragon, expensive marzipan, soot and perhaps a stray wet dog which has wandered a long way from Turckheim... Increasingly earthy and nutty, notes of walnut and brazil nut. Mouth: cask strength prune juice! A battering ram of truffles, black olives, tar, hessian, fig compote, strawberry jam, distilled prunes, wet earth, leaf mulch, mushroom soup and raspberry cordial. A bit mental. With water: maraschino cherries, five spice, plum wine and blackcurrant syrup. Some pomegranate and chocolate limes as well. A bit bonkers really. But, I have to say, very good. Finish: Long, hugely spicy, charred hardwoods, meaty, more damp sods of earth and notes of pastry, black olive tapenade and mulled Buckfast! Comments: Undeniably silly, but also clean and commendably potent stuff. I’m sure this was being used to re-surface the roads around the distillery before they came up with the Family Casks idea. It’s a tad too much sherry for me and I do think there’s a lack of balance, but others will no doubt cheerfully list their family members of ebay to possess some...
SGP: 671 - 86 points.

Glenfarclas 1990/2017 Family Casks (51.2%, OB, cask #9255, sherry butt, 596 bottles)
Colour: rosewood. Nose: we’re really investigating the difference between sherry casks here. You can feel the same distillate profile is there underneath, but someone has piled different things on top of it. This one is more directly earthy, more sooty, notes of canvas and a more hefty and traditional meaty profile. A more old school sherry style perhaps? Notes of rustic pinot noir, walnut wine, strawberry jam and aged balsamic. The sherry is still massive but there’s an overall sense of restraint and composure which I think the previous one lacked. With water: more leathery, dried meats seasoned with lots of black pepper, strong black tea and various freshly baked breads. Mouth: big notes of cherry liqueur, liquorice, old bandies, a minty Fernet Branca note, coal hearth, hessian sack cloth and straw mats. Quite a lot going on, this is certainly more complex and interesting that the 89. Venison strew, bundled dried herbs and thick, old school cough syrups. Pecan pie, simmering wood spices, Dundee cake and medicinal old demerara rums. Quite something! With water: more classical now, towards prune juice, figs, dates and muesli. Strawberry wine, walnut oils and more balsamic and strong minty notes - creme de menth muddled with strawberry compote. Finish: Long, hugely earthy, peppery, oily and meaty. Notes of olive oil, lemon balm, cough sweets, mint julep and some pretty stalwart tannins. Comments: What a difference a cask makes! The sherry intensity is similar to the 89, only here you have a more compelling and complex flavour profile which holds the sherry’s power in a more even balance. Extremely good and will undoubtedly compel sherry heads to auction even closer relatives...
SGP: 771 - 91 points.

Glenfarclas 1991/2017 Family Casks (57%, OB, cask #209, sherry butt, 570 bottles)
Colour: light amber. Nose: a much lighter sherry profile, all on sultanas and various expensive, aromatic tobaccos. A really sleek earthiness lies underneath as well. Coal dust, game meats, dried mint, hessian and soft waxes. Wears its 57% extremely deftly. Develops on candied peel, leaf mulch and lanolin - really beautiful. With water: perfectly gravelly, earthy and round. Full of big, fat, dark, boozy fruits. Aged cognacs and rums mingle with tea tree oil and freshly ground coffee. Mouth: big, red-fruited, sherry-driven, spicy, mouth-coating unctuousness. Lots of caramel, milk chocolate, hints of soy sauce and Chinese spices. Big and hugely impressive. There’s a slight element of rubber to it, but it’s a cleaner, earthier more natural ‘dirty’ quality, if you can really call it dirty. With water: meaty, maraschino cherry, ointments, fat earthiness, dried cranberries and white balsamico. A globulous hint of rancio in the distance as well. Finish: long, extremely leathery, spicy, perfectly tannic, peppery and with this rich, unlit cigar quality. Comments: A total gem of a Glenfarclas. Everything is big, intense and potent but held in perfect poise and grace. A real, old school sherried beauty!
SGP: 771 - 92 points.

Glenfarclas 1992/2017 Family Casks (59.0%, OB, cask #862, sherry butt, 614 bottles)
Colour: gold. Nose: It’s funny how this one feels immediately more modern. A really lovely, easygoing and straightforward sweetness that includes honeys, a touch of vanilla cream, warm pastries, custard and various old dessert wines. Hints of coconut, creme brulee, chocolate sauce and a splosh of mulled wine. With water: more jammy, more citrus, custard cream buscuits, toasted brioche, mulled wine and marzipan. Mouth: hotter and more tart than the others. More towards gooseberry, star fruit, lemon peel, spiced rye bread, ointments, caraway and liquorice. Also quite a few red fruits and hints of damson, fruit chutneys, plum crumble and mirabelle eau de vie. A nibble of green peppercorn as well. With water: fruit pastilles, chamomile, gomme syrup, a bite of cocktail bitters and rising note of sawdust and new oak. A warm workshop. Finish: long, sweet and spicy. Some fresh ginger, fruity red chilli, aspirin, earthy turmeric and spicy vanilla. A lump of milk chocolate keeping the sweetness alive in the background. Comments: We’ve really arrived in the modern era of Glenfarclas you feel. And it’s very good. Big sweetness and a suggestion of slightly more active oak but there’s plenty complexity to keep everything lively and delicious.
SGP: 661 - 89 points.

Glenfarclas 1993/2017 Family Casks (57.0%, OB, cask #511, refill sherry butt, 601 bottles)
Colour: amber. Nose: if you took the 92 and the 91 and combined them you would likely get something akin to this. It has that lovely tobacco, earthy sherry quality but there’s also a sticky, glazed fruit sweetness to it as well. Various jams, fruits, spices, bitter chocolate and a slightly hessian, sack cloth note. Quite straightforward but very good. With water: some more fragrant and citrus fruit notes, touches of limoncello, hand cream, shortbread and toasted walnuts. Mouth: sweet fruit chutneys, black olives, dunnage earthiness, malty sweetness and honeyed porridge. Also notes of strawberry wine, orange liqueur and mint cordial. Some slightly drier herbal notes coming through in time. With water: a little leaf mulch, some mushroomy notes, cooking sherry and warm spice cake. A little prune juice as well. Finish: good length and quite bready with raisins, sultanas, sweet rums and a light camphory side. Comments: Very good but perhaps not as defined or as obvious as some of the previous ones.
SGP: 551 - 87 points. 

Glenfarclas 1994/2017 Family Casks (53.0%, OB, cask #1579, refill sherry butt, 448 bottles)
Colour: amber. Nose: a slightly more brutal style again; leafy, mulchy, dried hay, trodden bracken, earthy, some salty bacon fat that moves towards pork scratchings and a lean and muscular mix of almonds, old chenin blanc and things like ink and carbon paper. Quite chiselled and punchy with a rising champhory side. Some spoonfuls of grassy olive oil. With water: lots of hessian, caraway, a little motor oil, a tool shed and some toasted seeds and trail mix. Mouth: an unexpectedly raisiny sweetness, damp earthy dunnage, cloves, lemon barley water, sour cherries and some aged mead. A very nice mix of earthiness and natural sweetness with a fairly mouth-coating, gloopy texture. Fruity notes like guava and melon give it a lift and added lightness. With water: a lovely mulchy earthiness, warm, simmering wood spices, dates, figs, mint tea, sultanas, herbal liqueurs, wood resins. Really comes alive beautifully with water. Finish: Long, beautifully resinous, herbal, full of chocolate sauce, coal hearth, lemon cordial and further subtle green fruit notes. Comments: I had this one around 88 all the way until the palate with water really lifted things a few notches. Not only swims but leaps like a Drumnadrochit salmon escaping a deep fat fryer!
SGP: 651 - 90 points.

Glenfarclas 1995/2017 Family Casks (42.1%, OB, cask #2292, sherry hogshead, 216 bottles)
Colour: deep amber. Nose: Holy featherless Dodo! What a sublime, old school sherry character. Really this is just an abundance of earths, immense rancio, walnut extracts and wines, ancient herbal liqueurs and red fruit compotes. Polished hardwoods, black olives, ancient balsamic, mint and cherry eau de vie. Massive and totally beautiful complexity. Blind you’d say you were nosing a circa 1960 Glenfarclas I’m sure. Get’s slightly more meaty and leathery but also opens up with notes of gun flint, graphite oil and hardwood resins. Just wonderful! Mouth: Ooft! How many litres of VORS oloroso were still in the cask! Really, it’s like this has been reduced with actual sherry! Mentholated, salted almonds, green olive, freshly chopped herbs, camphor, soot and a whole kitchen sink full of rancio. Truffle, wet leaves, coal dust, soy sauce. Finish: Medium in length but not the longest. Still with a big echo of rancio, bitter chocolate and pure, old school sherried goodness though. Comments: I’m not 100% sure about the palate, you really get the feeling this cask still has quite some remnant sherry lurking within when it was filled. But what a cask! Pure, clean, vivid, old school stuff. I love it, perhaps the palate lets it down technically in terms of overall ‘oomph’, but the nose on its own is 93 point material.
SGP: 771 - 91 points.

Glenfarclas 1995/2015 Family Casks (52.1%, OB, cask #6640, sherry butt, 637 bottles)
Colour: amber. Nose: a rather mentholated style of sherry that’s towards eucalyptus resins and tea tree oil. Notes of red liquorice, maraschino cherry, cola cubes, strawberry sweeties and then a gamey meaty side. Further notes of mutton, bay leaf, cocoa powder, darjeeling tea and lemon peel. Very nice aromatic profile that veers between punchy and fragrant. With water: elegantly leafy, mineral oil, raspberry jam, buttered toast and clove rock. Mouth: soft, peppery spices, damp dunnagey earthy qualities, saffron, coal hearth, olive oil, pot pourri, walnut wine and a very nice sweet coconut note. Also some lean bacon frazzle notes (if you need to google them you haven’t lived), cranberry sauce and some very nice notes of mint julep and gingerbread. With water: baked apples, a stray kumquat, cinnamon buns and wild strawberry. Finish: long, leafy, full of red fruits, citrus peel, peppery tannins and a rising note of cough medicine. Comments: An extremely easy, clean and lazily fruity example - to sip while lounging in a hammock perhaps... We’re really tiptoeing around the 90 mark here. The trouble is it’s yet another very good Family Cask and I’m swithering... but I think we’ll err on the side of generosity on this occasion. It is very lovely after all and my hammock is calling me...
SGP: 641 - 90 points.  

Glenfarclas 2000/2017 Family Casks (56.9%, OB, cask #3633, sherry butt, 640 bottles)
Colour: gold. Nose: the sherry is much more restrained here which is fascinating as it lays bare this more contemporary style of Glenfarclas distillate. Which in this case is really quite fatty, oily and naturally meaty. There’s a surprising waxiness about it along with some slightly overripe banana and other green fruit notes. Toasted sunflower seeds, grass, gristy malt notes and some rather polished and greasy cereal qualities. Quite fascinating and pretty excellent. With water: grassy, mineral, oily, subtly waxy. Some big notes of lemon wax, almond and a fragrant gorse bush quality. Mouth: a big, emphatic, textural and punchy delivery. Slightly medicinal, a touch of natural rubber, some mineral oils, graphite, orange bitters, marshmallow sweetness, green pepper. A real departure from the previous bottlings. With water: there really is a slightly grungy, greasy side to this, it’s a very textural fatty malt. Lots of meaty sinew, nutty notes, damp earthiness, some chalk and lemon cough medicine. Finish: long, hefty and with resurgent notes of natural rubber, herbal liqueur, lemon oil, barley wine and turmeric. Comments: A real departure and quite a fascinating glimpse into a really weighty side of Glenfarclas we rarely see. I also find it very good. Challenging at times but one that’s worth wrestling with...
SGP: 572 - 89 points.

Glenfarclas 2001/2017 Family Casks (58.8%, OB, cask #3352, refill sherry butt, 638 bottles)
Colour: amber. Nose: different again, this time it’s more herbal, more organic, leafy, supple spices, meat pates, baked apples and fragrant green and herbal teas. More classical in most senses. Some menthol tobacco, strawberry laces, white pepper, tiger balm and camphor. With water: a tad more classical now with these leafier qualities and moves towards dried mushrooms and roast chestnuts. Some orange oils as well. Mouth: fruit liqueurs mixed with ground black pepper, balsamic, strawberry wine, chamomile tea, pumpernickel bread and hazelnut spread. A more modern style of sherry for sure but still very clean and top notch. Some prunes, pears baked in honey and wax canvas. With water: surprising floral notes of yellow flowers, grass and geraniums alongside spiced fruit loaf, sultanas, brown sugar and tea tree oil. Various ointments, sooty aspects and a few twists of pencil shaving. Finish: good length but rather light and gently oily. On crystalised citrus peels, cinnamon grahams and baked gooseberries. Comments: solid, dependable, modern Glenfarclas. Nothing to complain about here. Not as vivid or glorious as some of the older ones we’ve tried in these two sessions but there wonderful wee callbacks to some of the more old school qualities (waxes, some more expressive fruits etc...) Excellent!
SGP: 541 - 88 points.