Glenfarclas 9 year Old - Southport Whisky Club Bottling

-
Glenfarclas. Not a distillery I have sampled a great deal from before. I've never owned any either, apart from a half bottle of the 105 received as as a gift a couple of years ago, which I really enjoyed. Not sure why, they have just never really caught my attention.

Perhaps its the old school branding or maybe because their online presence is practically non-existent. Granted, both are poor excuses for not exploring more of "Probably Speyside's Finest Distillery" range, as it should all be about what's inside the bottle should it not? However, these things matter and Glenfarclas might be missing a trick here to draw more people in for a dram or two.

Anyway, on to the dram in hand.

This Glenfarclas is 9 years old and 1 of of 300 bottles produced especially for the @SouthportWhisky Club and Vino, an independent wine and spirit merchant in Edinburgh.

How did I get one? Thanks to my Malt Mate @jwbassman, who heartily reccommended the whisky and offered the chance to buy a bottle. He also designed the label. And took the picture below. Is there anything he can't do 😛?


Glenfarclas 9 Year Old  - Southport Whisky Club Bottling


ABV 48.2%


Nose - Heavy on the cask charr this! Dry, sherried and very savory for me. Musty dunnage, foosty wet towels,hint of salt n vinegar crisps. With time some red fruits appear. 

Taste - Immediate dry (Olorosso?) sherry. Thick and weighty, Some red berries, moves into more of a bourbon cask territory as it fades to the finish. Oak spice too. (I'm assuming this is a marriage of sherry and bourbon casks, but may be totally wrong).

Finish - Drying, very wood heavy and spicy.


Overall - This is a stoater of a dram, I may need to request another (signed by jwbassman this time) bottle.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bowmore - Vaults Secrets Tour

-
Image
Wednesday, April 10:30 am. Not the usual time to be enjoying a dram (maybe it is for some folk) but here I am sitting sipping a Bowmore Vault First Edition in the distillery bar overlooking Loch Indaal. This is the the Bomore Vaults Secrets tour and already the signs are it's going to be good. It started when the Father in Law and I were called by our guide, Kim, for the tour to find we were the only two on it. A private tour round Islay's oldest distillery? Sign me up! The tour started with us being issued our own Bowmore branded lanyards and Perfect Dram glasses (always a good sign of the amount of whisky you can expect on a tour when you get a lanyard) which were promptly filled with a good measure of Vault First Edition. A nice wee opener and a welcome reward after the grueling 500ft or so walk in the sunshine from our accomodation to the distillery. After the drams, Kim took us from the bar to the Malt Barns which are situated over three levels in a building
Read more

Tomatin - Distillery Hand Fill - Oloroso Cask 5221

-
Image
Picked this up during a holiday to the Inverness area in 2017. Unfortunately I did not have the time to take in a tour at Tomatin, but this more than made up for it. Age Statement  - 12 years Cask -  Oloroso Cask 5221 Bottle 12 Region  - Speyside Served  - Neat ABV  56.9% Colour  - Chestnut brown. This stuff has the thickest, slowest legs I've ever seen Nose  - Dates, Figs, Sultana, Stewed Apple, Christmas Cake, Granny's baking a fly cemetery, Treacle, Brown Sugar, Cinnamon Palate  - Same as the nose, sherry spice and lots of it, thick, chewy, warming by the fire, more dark fruit, sherry, lots of Oloroso dryness, oak in the background struggling to rise above the sherry flavoured onslaught  Finish  - Long, just finished a christmas pudding type of thing,  Conclusion  -  Spectacular whisky, wow. A sherry bomb of the nuclear kind. Slainte
Read more

Daftmill 2006 Winter Batch Release

-
Image
I've been interested in trying a Daftmill release for some time but the opportunity hadn't presented itself. I was tempted to try one in The Pot Still one night (can't remember the bottle details) but it was £30 or so for a dram and I wasn't rich (or drunk) enough to splash that sort of cash. Enter  @stewedwhisky  who, after a wee Twitter exchange, very generously sent a sample of the 2006 Winter Batch Release for me to try. Granted a licence to distill in 2005, Daftmill didn't rush into releasing whisky after only 3 or 4 years, instead choosing to wait a fair while longer with the Daftmill 2005-12 Year Inaugural Release. Located near Cupar, Fife the distillery itself  is built in a old converted farm building  and has a maximum production capacity of 20,000 litres of spirit per year, making it a very low volume/highly desirable whisky. So, is Daftmill worth the hype? Daftmill 2006 Winter Batch Release  ABV 46% Nose - Autumnal orchard fruits.
Read more