Wandering through the bars of Milan, we discovered a little, unknown temple of scotch whisky. Harp Pug Guinness, in Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, keeps on his shelves dozens of old bottles from the Seventies and Eighties, in a wonderful, past-time atmosphere. We saved a sample of a Glenfarclas 15 years old bottled thirty years ago, a true gem that now is sold at auction for crazy prices, and we thought it was a nice idea to compare it with the current 15 yo. This comparison was really stimulating, and we’ll start today with the younger of the two.
N: a kind of ‘dry’ sherried style, surely modern (we must say now that the older Glenfarclas is a forgotten relative of this); a bit pungent, with a wet cardboard note that after a while softens a lot. Even if it comes with his sharp edges, the overall profile is nobled by elegant sherry notes: strawberry pastry, hazelnuts, apple chips and dehidrated fruit. Raisins. You get a feeling of freshly cut wood, sugared milk; some candied oranges. If we move the nose to the older GF and then get back to this, well, this seems much younger: on the nose, thrilled by the complexity of that one, we now get candied fruit, yeast, young malt…
P: here’s the biggest obstacle to our full appreciation for Glenfarclas core range: the soft impact on the palate. It’s fresh, and again it’s dry. Almonds and a discreet red fruitiness. Burnt sugar (also cooking marmalade). A lot of maltiness, for a kind of easy drinking dram. A good thing: it’s compact, and it’s clearly Glenfarclas.
F: again dried fruit, and some milk too. Cigar smoke. Long, lingering, very nice.
Reading Serge’s review (which gives our same score: 84/100, hurray!) we stumbled into a sentence that we completely agree with, and that resumes perfectly the nature of this dram: “Not very demonstrative, but very nicely balanced”. In our own words: the guy’s a bit shy, but if you give him confidence, well, it ain’t that bad after all.
Recommended soundtrack: for this winter evening, Ruth Moody – Cold Outiside
