Glenfarclas 15 Year Old

Nose - Christmas cake

Palate - Christmas cake

Finish - Christmas cake

Did I miss anything?

Seriously though, this is a staggering whisky, and one which seems woefully under-exposed to the vast majority of people to whom I speak. For Shame...

The best comparison for GF15 is probably not to a whisky, but to another 15 year old - El Dorado 15 Year Old Rum (distilled in Guyana in Wooden [yes, wooden!] pot-stills). The depth of complexity in this rum is simply mind-boggling, and it's really quite a challenge to simply understand what's going on in the glass.

It's much the same deal with GF15 - it's so full-flavoured and complex, that the best way to pull the flavour profile apart is to make reference to something else (christmas cake) that's so incredibly packed full of condensed and concentrated dried-fruit flavour that you almost accept the overwhelmingness of it as a given.

Now, if you take into account the fact that rum matures roughly 3 times faster in the tropics than whisky does in Scotland, and you begin to comprehend the level of sophistication and complexity that you're geting for less than £40.

This would, without a shadow of a doubt be in my top ten desert island whiskies, and I heartily, heartily recommend that you all try it just as soon as you can.

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