The Glenfarclas 25

Tasting notes:
What a venerable whisky this is, a fitting crown to the Familia Glenfarclii.  Bill remembers drinking this at the Bow Bar in Edinburgh.  He kept his notes on a folded-up placemat and I now quote from them: “A Russian babushka doll, holding an Egyptian canopic jar, enclosing a Han dynasty vase, stuffed with an old lemon chewed with studied diffidence by a capybara.”  Well, we get the lemon right on the nose.  But also a curious cheese note, perhaps a Grana Padano?
     The mouth wins best in show.  Really soft and balanced and rich and deep.  A well that returns buckets of manna, deep in the land of milk and honey.  Lightly spiced and just balanced.
     Finish is long and delicate and just perfect.  I am standing in front of the Food Truck of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  And I am tempted.  A serpent whispers in my ear the precise flavor spectrum that runs through the Glenfarclas family.  I hear him clearly but, as if in a dream, my effort to repeat the words results in inarticulate mumbles.  At the end of this string of nonsense I say “…it’s like intelligent design.”  [Stephen: “I don’t follow.”]  [Bill: “You have to be intelligent to understand the design.”] Cursed like Cassandra, I can only nod and look down at my hands folded in my lap.