Highland Park proper, part two and last


December 14, 2023

Highland Park proper, part two and last

With an awesome flourish at the end. Well, we'll see...

Highland Park 19 yo 2003/2022 'The 26 #5' (51.8%, Maltbarn, bourbon, 48 bottles)

A small outturn, more or less one man's yearly consumption of good Highland Park (I mean, on Orkney). Colour: straw. Nose: it's a crystalline one. Smoked oysters, chalk and limoncello. With water: more medicinal. Embrocations, balms, bandages, tincture of iodine, charcoal. Lip balm. Mouth (neat): more limoncello, iodine, chalk, touch of green pepper, seaweed and a drop of Jäger. With water: banana skin, peppers, paraffin, sage, lemon zests. Finish: medium, greener, leafier. Holly spirit, buds and zests… Comment: did you notice how we kept this sort of short? Extremely fine middle-aged all-natural HP.
SGP:462 - 88 points.

Highland Park 1998/2019 (54%, Or Sileis, Taiwan, hogshead, cask #13, 180 bottles)

Colour: white wine. Nose: pure, sooty, ashy HP. Paraffin, carbon dust, crème de menthe, touch of coriander seed. With water: more menthol, eucalyptus… Exceptional pure nose. Mouth (neat): brilliant citrusy, tense, flinty HP. No prisoners. With water: seawater and oysters chiming in, with a little drop of tabasco. Immaculate. Finish: long, with dazzling purity. A blade, as we sometimes say. Pure ashes in the aftertaste. Comment: a minimalistic, surgical HP – our favourites.
SGP:463 - 91 points.

Highland Park 28 yo 1992/2021 (46.6%, Artful Dodger Whisky Collective, sherry hogshead, cask #1271, 297 bottles)

Colour: gold. Nose: we're closer to the older officials this time, with some sublime waxes and a very subtle sherriness, around pecans and pistachios, walnuts, marzipan and manuka honey. And heather. An amazingly complex earthiness in the background, small mushrooms, mosses…. Mouth: much more potent than you would think, thanks to many spices, around paprika and soft curry. Awesome cereals, moist breads, beerawecka, mead, a little cedarwood, beeswax… Finish: pretty long and extremely well-polished, mainly on all kinds of waxes and salted nuts, including peanuts. Thai bouillons in the aftertaste, coriander, chilli, honey... Comment: love this one as much as the pervious one, even though they are diametrically opposed. But blend both and presto, heavens.
SGP:562 - 91 points.

Highland Park 32 yo 1989/2022 (50.7%, East Village Whisky Company, for Whisky Maniac, Germany, hogshead)

More creative labels, as it appears, and a really old HP this time. Colour: brighter straw. Nose: this wee old one starts fully on soot and ashes, and would then move towards gooseberries, apples, melons and mirabelles, plus lemons and grapefruits. All this is perfectly perfect, well-carved, ultra-precise. With water: some fresh cakes kicking in, orange blossom panettone, croissants….. All while more fresh spearmint is coming thought, making it even fresher. Mouth (neat): sweeter, rather in the style of some legendary old officials distilled in the 1960s, with this perfect fresh fruits + honey combo. Apples are perfect, so are plums, so are heather and chestnut honeys, so is beeswax, and so are all these little herbal teas, between woodruff and just mint, which would add a feeling of yellow chartreuse. With water: we've reached the pinnacle of ripe fruits and honey combos. Mirabelles are just mad and running all over the place. Ripe kiwis too. Finish: long, with more fresh spices and waxes. The trademark heather honey keeps chirping in the background, together with a little mint tea. Comment: as good as it gets. You could have said it was an OB.
SGP:652 - 91 points.

Highland Park 27 yo (52.5%, Hunter Laing, The Kinship, cask #HL20648, 268 bottles, 2023)

A lovely series, these Kinships. Colour: straw. Nose: oh, the chalk is back, the raw sheep wool is back too, so are bandages and embrocations, with some kelp and wild leek, samphire, oyster shells, plasticine, iodine… You see. With water: a pretty coastal one indeed. Oysters, kelp, lemon and Alsatian riesling. Or zero-dosage Champagne. Mouth (neat): incredible ancient apples, hops, weissbeer, small jujubes and juneberries, sorb eau-de-vie… I deeply love all this, thank you Hunter Laing. With water: oh, herbs, resins, ointments, plaster, bandages, greases and oils… This one would almost make you feel like you should break a leg. All right, say a little finger. Finish: not that long but very coastal and salty. Superb chalky and lemony aftertaste. Tighter beers. Comment: we continue in the same vein, where is this going to stop? What a distillate! (but we knew that, right).
SGP:562 - 91 points.

Highland Park 23 yo 1998/2022 (57%, Orkney Sponge, refill hogshead, 277 bottles)

Fact: The Sponge is a HP head. Also, Stromness/OO exegetes will have recognised the inspiration for this lovely label. Colour: light gold. Nose: dry, on sponges (yep), chalk, wool, cloth, seawater, asparagus and bamboo shoots. Gets then frankly citric. Was this one actually aged in concrete? Amphoras? With water: same, plus crushed slate and oyster shells. That's excellent for plants, I've heard. Mouth (neat): very tight, very waxy, very lemony. A lemon-scented candle burning on a beach. With water: It just softens a little bit, with green banana and fatty, salty seafood. Clams, for example, or scallops. Sautéed scallops with Noilly. Whatever. Finish: long and rather fat, salty, chalky, with a little plasticine. Lemon and citron liqueur and cordial in the aftertaste. Comment: spirit-driven, not too old but already in the pantheon of Orkney.
SGP:562 - 90 points.

Highland Park 1991/2023 (53.4%, Signatory Vintage, 35th Anniversary, 1st fill sherry butt, cask #15088)
(The Daily Record)

PREVIEW
Highland Park 1991/2023 (53.4%, Signatory Vintage, 35th Anniversary, 1st fill sherry butt, cask #15088)

All right, this baby's not out yet, it'll come out early next year, but since we're lucky enough to have it, we sure won't put it into WF's refrigerated safe until then (indeed we have that!) By the way, wasn't Signatory's 30th Anniversary just last year, or perhaps the year before? To my generation of whisky enthusiasts, so the youngsters, right, Signatory was and remains a very seminal bottler. The whisky world would be completely different without Signatory, perhaps still full of caramel and heavily cold-filtered uisge beatha. We owe a lot to Andrew and Signatory. Colour: deep gold. Nose: starts with a little cider or Sauternes-sulphur, with some hops, leaves, walnut skins, some gunpowder, then we have oil paint, clay, mushrooms, mustard à l'ancienne, pickled gherkins… I have to say this is a little intriguing and rather very Andalusian. Let's see how it evolves… With water: cigars, cedarwood, figs and forgotten vegetable gratin. Parsnip, swede, cardoon… Mouth (neat): walnuts roasted in honey sauce and quite some gunpowder again. Chocolate, white truffles, touch of pointed cabbage and bok choy. Some demerara sugar. With water: awesome salted praline and nougat, earth, walnut liqueur, amaro… Finish: long and rather all on walnut wine. A little mustard, grapefruit, roasted chestnuts and pecans in the aftertaste. Comment: there is a commendable ruggedness in this old Highland Park. It seems like a real sherry cask, which held actual sherry, actually intended for human consumption. It improves with exposure to air, it just needs quite some time. Yet another 91-pointer.
SGP:462 - 91 points.

There has to be a last one, let's make it not just any Highland Park… (although no Highland Park is just any Highland Park)…

Highland Park 54 yo 1968/2023 (46.9%, OB, refill and 1st fill sherry, 225 bottles)

Sure it is a buy-a-whisky-or-buy-a-Tesla bottle at £39,000, but frankly, hasn't Tesla become so very 2019 these days? Several casks have been assembled and reracked into 1st fill sherry in 2008, for 14 years of further, second maturation. So, this is absolutely not 'a finishing' (whisky influencers beware). Colour: just golden. Nose: it instantly reminds me of the 1967s, of the old John-Goodwin bottle, and of a beehive that you would open for the first time in the spring. Honey is HP's main marker, and believe me, there is a lot of honeys in there, heather of course, lime blossom too, meadow all-flower, plus bags of pollen. All that is just life. Bees are life. Have you ever seen bees flying close to the ground like fighter jets on the windy Scottish islands? It's incredible to observe and the nose of this fifty-four-year-old Highland Park is incredible too. Mouth: there is a warm, honeyed sweetness to start with, followed by notes of old Sauternes and nectar of the gods (mead is the drink of the gods on Mount Olympus), a bit of crème brûlée and tarte Tatin, some notes of old wood and mint, very ripe apples, touches of oriental pastries... All of this is somewhat fragile and delicate, a bit like an ancient Baccarat crystal chandelier. One must not jostle or handle it roughly. Finish: not very long but very nicely mentholated. Still a bit of mead and old Sauternes, and very ripe figs right at the end. Comment: this isn't whisky, it's poetry. All the more reason not to hesitate between this true marvel and a mere Tesla (or any other car, really).
SGP:651 - 93 points.

37 Highland Parks and Secret Orkneys altogether, that's not too bad. What's more, the average score for them is probably extremely high (but I have yet to calculate it, ha).

(We need to thank Martin, Nicolas and many other friends for all these disclosed and undisclosed Highland Parks)

Check the index of all Highland Park we've tasted so far