Glenfarclas truly is a family affair. For six generations the Grant family has served the Speyside distillery in various roles. It all started in 1865, when John Grant purchased a beautiful plot of land in the Highlands. For the price of £511, the land included a distillery, which for John was particularly attractive for farming, new machinery, and a shiny new mill. Soon enough however, it would be the whisky produced that would become the gem purchased in the deal.
It was near the turn of the 20th-century things really started to take off for Glenfarclas. The boom in the whisky industry led George Grant (John’s son) to partner with blenders Pattison, Elder & Co. The partnership was short-lived as George Grant realised he was best off going at it alone, and thus Glenfarclas began to thrive as the independent distillery it still is today.
This watercolour of Glenfarclas as painted in 1791 suggests a history pre-dating known records.
By the 1950s, Glenfarclas were able to mash and distil simultaneously, greatly increasing production capacity. Chairman George S Grant made a wise prediction that single malt, and not blends, would be the key to the future for Glenfarclas. From the late mid ’50s onwards casks were left to be matured, and today Glenfarclas holds an awe-inspiring collection of ‘Family Casks’ from nearly every year since 1954. In 2007, Glenfarclas launched the ‘Family Cask’ series, creating one of the most unique whisky offerings with vintages of the last seven decades.
Perhaps it’s the stream of water from the local Green Burn, or maybe the directly fired up copper stills, or even the way the fresh Highland air circulates the casks in the warehouse. Wherever the secret lies; Glenfarclas is a dram like no other. For six generations the Grant’s have been producing some of the most complex and enjoyable sherry matured whisky the Highlands has to offer.
See our range of Glenfarclas HERE
Check out our profile on yet another legendary distillery Laphroaig HERE