Glenfarclas 17 Year Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky

The Glenfarclas 17 Year Old is a wonderful Speyside single malt Scotch whisky manufactured for the travel retail sector. The richly sherried bottle is brimming with character, its complex, sophisticated flavour imparting both a hint of peat and an aroma of malt sherried peels.

This Glenfarclas 17 Year Old whisky has hints of oak, complexity but finely balanced. It also combines the smoothness of our younger whiskies with the greater depth of our older expressions. However, it is bottled in limited quantities primarily for the North American, Japanese and Travel Retail markets.

Compared to the 12 and 15 year old offerings by this distillery, Glenfarclas 17 Year Old is minimalist within the sherry bomb whisky universe. Its equivalent in the cinematic realm is: Lost in Translation or Broken Flowers.

The sherry flavors are not over-the-top, out-of-control or punchy. This is probably due to the fact that the abv is a reasonable 43%. Enough to deliver complexity, but not so much as to knock the flavors out of balance.

Hence,

Glenfarclas 17 Year Old is a well put together malt, balanced, refined and my favorite of the distillery’s range of 12, 15 17 and 21 year offerings. At the same time it is muted and the pencil shaving/oak finish makes you wonder. Just as the aforementioned films sometimes give rise to more questions than they answer, this malt reels you in repeatedly as you try to fathom that interesting finish.