Glenfarclas celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2011, counting from the formal licensing of the distillery at Rechlerich farm in 1836. Whisky-making on the site is believed to have predated that date, but 1836 is the year the ledgers acknowledge. The Grant family's tenure began only in 1865, when John Grant bought the distillery for £511 and 19 shillings, a figure the company still enjoys quoting.
To mark the 175th, a commemorative bottling was released, vatted from sherry casks drawn from several decades of the distillery's stocks. It is not a single-vintage release and it does not carry an age statement, but the intent was to present the house style across time: the dried-fruit sweetness, the nutty oloroso character, the gentle backbone imparted by the direct-fired stills.
At 43% and without chill filtration, the whisky sits comfortably alongside the core range in style. It is more celebratory than experimental, which is entirely appropriate for an anniversary bottling. What it offers the drinker is a kind of summary statement: this, the whisky says, is what Glenfarclas has been doing for 175 years, and this is what it intends to go on doing.
Commemorative bottlings tend to disappear from shelves and reappear on the secondary market, and the 175th has followed that path. It remains a legible, unfussy example of the Ballindalloch house style.
