Glenfarclas 105 Cask Strength

Glenfarclas 105 Cask Strength Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky

The last Bottle Kill Week review is Glenfarclas 105 Cask Strength.  This was my first Glenfarclas and it was recommended to me by someone whose whiskey tastes I highly respect.  I had been eyeing a few of their bottles for quite some time so I was easily persuaded to check out this release.

Glenfarclas itself is an interesting distillery.  It has been family owned and managed for 5 generations since 1865, making it the oldest family owned distillery in Scotland (I’m sure someone will correct me if I overstated this).   As you will notice in the pictures, they market as a Highland Single Malt, but the distillery is in fact within the Speyside region….This seems to go back to before Speyside was recognized as a separate spirit region…if you every check out a map of the Scotch regions, you’ll notice that Speyside is enveloped by the Highland region….anyways, while the label says “Highland Single Malt” their website acknowledges that they make it in the “traditional Speyside style”. Glenfarclas’s marketing, as Churchill said, is a “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”  Ok, so Churchill wasn’t referring to Glenfarclas when he said that, but it holds true.  Now the reason why I was so interested in Glenfarclas (prior to buying this bottle) is that if you want to explore some aged spirit, Glenfarclas is still reasonably priced.  The 17 Year Old can be found for $110, the 21 year old for $165, and the 25 year old for $230.  Not chump change, but certainly not as inflated as some of its peers have gotten over the years.

Glenfarclas typically ages its whiskey in ex-Oloroso Sherry Casks, this bottle is a NAS but the internet believes it is 8 year old juice.

ABV: 60% (Cask Strength)

How it smells….. Butterscotch bomb and berries….with a bit of water, it gets fruitier and maltier.

How it tastes…..fruity up front with berries and cherries and cocoa and nutty notes at the end.  The finish is sweet at the tip of the tongue but peppery spice on the back of the tongue….with a dab of water, it gets spicier throughout…starting off spicy and some cocoa lingering throughout as well.  The end is like a Werthers Original with a sweet finish and some pepper at the back end.

Price…$80 - $125

Rating...🥃🥃(🥃🥃)

Final thoughts…I ended up liking this one.  Taste wise, it was really interesting but it got a lot more interesting with a dab of water.  The full strength was surprisingly approachable and had nice flavors, but diluting it a little really opens it up quite a bit.  That said, it does get really spicy throughout the sip after the water is added.  It also had a nice blend of fruit and mocha and spice, with sweet and spicy happening simultaneously in different parts of your mouth, with an underlying mocha/nuttiness throughout as well.  

I began this “Final thoughts…” section by saying that I ended up liking this one.  That wasn’t always the case.  LIke the SMWS 107.24, this is another that grew on me as I went back to it for a few sessions, but it certainly wasn’t love at first sight.  BUT, I will definitely be checking some of the other Glenfarclas bottles in the near future.

My only problem with this bottle was the price point.  I wayyyyyyy overpaid for it.  I paid $125 for this bottle from a liquor store that I frequent quite a bit and they usually have pretty good market prices.  However, in this instance they did not.  This can be found (with a little bit of effort) for $80-$90…so that’s a pretty big overpay on my part.  But that’s on me for not doing my regular due diligence.  I enjoyed it enough at if I bought it at $90, it’s a 4x 🥃 but given the $125 that I paid for it, I give it a 2x 🥃 from a value perspective.  

Bottle Kill Week #3….we lost a good man that day.