Review #92: Glenfarclas 12

This is the first in a 3 part series tasting my way up the Glenfarclas lineup with the 12 year, 17 year and 21 year. Glenfarclas is older family owned Speyside distillery that I’ve recently taken a liking to. All three of these expressions are exclusively aged in Oloroso sherry casks and are delightfully sweet.

Glenfarclas 12 Year

Age: 12 years

Abv: 86 proof

Color: A lighter gold

Cask Type: 100% Oloroso sherry casks

Price: $44.99

Neat

Nose: The sherry influence is very clear with rich dark fruit, sweet honey and fresh oak notes.

Taste: More honey, dark fruit and oak notes from the nose. Decent mouthfeel for the proof.

Finish: Medium length with sweet honey and just a touch of warm spice

On a rock

Nose: The ice mutes the oak notes leaving simple and sweet honey and dark fruit.

Taste: Again very similar to the nose with just the honey and fruit notes.

Finish: The finish held up surprisingly well to ice maintaining both the sweet and spicy notes and most of its duration.

Conclusion

I’m a fan of this bottle as far as 12 year single malts go especially for the price. It’s only a few more dollars than the Glenfiddich 12 and is more than worth it. The rich sherry notes throughout appeal to my palette, the mouthfeel is more viscous and a few more proof points don’t hurt either. On the other side of the spectrum this is a bit cheaper than Macallan’s 12 year expressions and can easily hold its own against them. I’ll definitely be broadening my 12 year scotch horizons in the coming months and will be using this guy as my baseline.

1 Star - Good whiskey: I would choose to drink this over readily available whiskies