Written by Mika Tanimoto, Owner-Bartender, Bar Little Happiness — Hiroshima’s specialist whisky & rum bar with 1,000+ bottles
There are a small number of distilleries where you feel, within minutes of arriving, that the building knows something you do not. Glenfarclas is one of them.
The distillery has operated in the Spey Valley since 1836 and has been owned by the Grant family since 1865. Six generations later, the family still runs it. This matters more than it might sound in an industry that increasingly speaks in the language of investment portfolios.
The Ship’s Room
The visitor experience at Glenfarclas includes a tasting in the Ship’s Room — a panelled, chandelier-lit space salvaged from an ocean liner and installed in the distillery as a private room for guests. The weight of the surroundings matches the weight of the whisky. The pot still sculpture in the entrance lobby — designed to evoke a domestic hearth — tells you immediately what kind of place this is: a family home in which whisky happens to be made, not a corporate facility that has added family branding.
Direct-Fired Distillation
Most distilleries heat their stills using steam — a method that is easier to control, more energy-efficient, and less demanding on equipment. Glenfarclas uses direct gas flame applied to the base of each pot still. The slight caramelisation that occurs at the bottom of a directly heated still contributes a depth and richness that cannot be replicated by any other method. The family has continued this technique because the whisky it produces is distinctly theirs, and they see no reason to change something that works.
The Whisky
The core range runs from 10 to 25 years, all matured in sherry casks. The 105 — a cask-strength expression in a blue flask — is among the most accessible introductions to what powerful Speyside single malt can be. Special single cask releases for specialist markets can be extraordinary. The version developed in collaboration with Japanese whisky critic Hideo Yamaoka — selected personally by the sixth-generation Grant family from distillery samples — is one of the finest Glenfarclas expressions I have encountered.
Glenfarclas is available at Bar Little Happiness. Read the full Japanese column: little-happiness.jp/columns/glenfarclas-distillery-golgo13-visit/
Bar Little Happiness | Hiroshima, Japan
Rum & Whisky specialists | 1,000+ bottles | English menu available
Open Mon–Sat 7PM–12:30AM, Sun 7PM–midnight
No cover charge. Walk-ins welcome.
english.little-happiness.jp