Glenfarclas 21 year old

Glenfarclas 21 year old single malt is a Speyside single malt that is presented here at 43% alcohol. There's no mention or care to mention if it's chilfiltered or if there's any colour added. This is an old traditional scotch and I guess they don't feel they need to get involved in the latest descriptive trends. They probably should, however. This is important information. It gets a little bit of Scottish mist once you add water and has a light golden colour to it, so perhaps it isn't chilfiltered and perhaps there isn't colour added, but they haven't said it outright, so it's hard to pin it down.

This scotch is very sweet and candy like. The nose begins with some very fruity (apples and pears) scents mixed with a rich malty feel, orange zest or perhaps even candied orange merge with something that's not quite toffee, not quite caramel and not quite chocolate fudge. Perhaps just a beautiful combination of all three?

The palate has something that reminds us a little of cinnamon hearts, sort of sweet but with a slight hot tingle, and a very light touch of oak.

The sweetness remains in the finish with a strong chocolately fudge flavour that comes in slowly and smoothly building slightly in a delicious sort of way. Afterwards there's a lingering dried woody taste that is subtle and not overbearing.

Glenfarclas 21 year old seems to be a pretty good scotch, but maybe we're just not ready for some  of the subtleties in it. It's good and we don't have anything bad to say about it, but it doesn't stand out as being particularly excellent in any way. We're pretty pleased to have had a chance to taste it but will probably explore some other scotches rather than picking this up again.