A new Highland Park craze, part three


February 26, 2026

A new Highland Park craze, part three

And last. Old ones, young ones, old bottles...

(Any resemblance to Hägar the Horrible is, naturally, purely coincidental. And sorry about the accents.)

Old Orkney 21 yo 1999-2003/2024 (52.9%, Decadent Drinks, bodega sherry butt and refill hogshead, 300 bottles)

Another O.O. and possibly another ooh… Colour: deep gold. Nose: we can clearly feel the complementarity, rather than any fight between the two casks, with on one side chocolate, coffee and tobacco, and on the other lemon, chalk and waxes. This duality is adorable, I do not believe I have ever truly experienced two malts eyeing each other quite like that, almost suspiciously, within a blend. With water: new wool, earth and paraffin come along and reconcile the whole crowd. Mouth (neat): we find that same sense of duality again, but it is as though the pepper, rather assertive here, were playing the diplomat this time, indeed bringing everyone together around the table. I mean, in the glass. With water: and there we are, the distillate has the last word. A great deal of fun in this proposition. Finish: long, more waxy, even rather oily, yet lemon and seaweed step in to temper it all. Bitter beer and dark chocolate in the aftertaste. Comments: a proper puzzle in your glass.
SGP:462 - 87 points.

Old Orkney 20 yo 1997-2005/2025 (55.5%, Whiskyland, Decadent Drinks, refill and 1st fill sherry hogsheads, 332 bottles)

All right then, the owners have just rid themselves of all their Viking paraphernalia, and Whiskyland promptly puts it back in the saddle on their label. Even if we are rather more in the territory of Hägar the Horrible here. At least he did not, unlike Olaf the Hairy, order 10,000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside. Colour: full gold. Nose: we are closer here to the old-style OBs, including the famous 12-year-olds with the screen-printed bottles. The celebrated heather honey appears at once, followed by dried figs, beeswax and purée of quince and apple. This is classic HP and we are certainly not complaining. With water: just perfect, luminous, all on citrus marmalades and seaweed. Quite beautiful. Mouth (neat): gentle, almost sweet at first, before utterly unbridled citrus fruits stage a veritable coup d’état, you-know-whom-style. A superb duo of citrus and honeys. With water: magnificent freshness, salinity, with touches of angelica and verbena, then bitters of extraordinary elegance. Finish: long, citrus-led, almost refreshing. A magnificent saline after-finish. Comments: this really does feel like one of the top single cask OBs from fifteen or twenty years ago.
SGP:561 - 90 points.

Here you are, a little something we’ve had sitting on the shelves for twenty years or more…

Highland Park 8 yo (43%, De Young’s, +/-2000)

A bottle for the Netherlands, I must confess I have not seen many of these about. Colour: gold. Nose: pretty, gentle, light, on hay and beeswax, fir wood, heather honey indeed, and figs… To be honest, we might well think this was an official young bottling from that era. Mouth: truly soft, yet lifted by small oranges and a touch of Campari. The famous heather honey does the rest of the job. Finish: not very long, it falters a little at this stage, yet there is a pleasing pepperiness and some lovely orange zest. And a touch of mentholated peat, or perhaps peaty mint. Comments: probably a vintage from the late 1970s or the early 1980s. Really very, very lovely.
SGP:562 - 87 points.

Secret Orkney 21 yo 1999/2021 (54.7%, PK Spirits, Four Seasons, sherry cask, 68 bottles)

A lovely little micro-bottling, perhaps an octave? In any case, a very handsome label, straight from Vietnam. Colour: straw. Nose: at last, we are back to the pure distillate, even if this was a sherry cask, doubtless a very lazy one, to our greatest delight. Waxes, oils, small garden apples, tiny citrus fruits that are lively and slightly defiant, plaster and chalk… all of this is more than perfect. With water: new wool, bread dough, lemon peel, all of it riiiiiiiight up my alley. Mouth (neat): but how good this is! Lemon as sharp as a blade, oysters, liquorice wood… I find this absolutely perfect, I know, I do go on. With water: touches of eucalyptus and mentholated tobacco. Finish: yes, alas, herbaceous, bitter, perfect. Comments: seriously, this is a killer bottle, but what an absolute scandal that there are, or rather were, only sixty-eight of them. When is the next Vietnam Airlines flight from Paris to Hanoi?
SGP:562 - 91 points.

Secret Orkney Distillery (HP) 25 yo 1999/2025 (50.9%, Wu Dram Clan, American oak hogshead, cask #120)

Colour: white wine. Nose: this is virtually the same whisky as the PK, only even sharper. In short, even more on lime, a veritable bayonet. Well, not entirely certain about that descriptor, but there we are, onwards… With water: twenty-five years of maturation in a cask more motionless than a French customs officer assigned to DHL have, here, worked wonders. Absolute freshness and unfathomable maritime aromas. Mouth (neat): perfection, seawater, lemons, seaweed, oysters, fresh mint leaf, grey pepper… With water: more perfect than perfection, this is Michelangelo. Finish: a very great sake, that is rather what it resembles at this stage. Comments: this is probably a whisky that would frighten 99% of humanity, including cats, dogs, horses and all the wretched staff currently in power you-know-where. It’s probably also one of the reasons why we love it so much – it’s our malt whisky hermit side.
SGP:562 - 91 points.

Oh, tell you what, we could quickly revisit some Highland Parks we tasted nearly twenty years ago, couldn’t we? We could call it, as architects say, “gaining a bit of historical perspective”, sounds alright to you?

Highland Park 37 yo 1966/2003 (41.3%, Duncan Taylor Peerless, cask #4644, 135 bottles)

Date of last tasting, 6 August 2008 (WF 87). Colour: gold. Nose: these bottles do grow a little tired, it has to be said. The notion that a whisky in bottle no longer moves is a dangerous myth, it may improve, but it may just as well deteriorate, especially at these lower strengths. Metal polish, banana, apple juice, dust, old furniture wax and not much else. Mouth: no, it has not improved, it has lost a little stamina, become slightly cardboardy, yet behind all that the heather honey and beeswax continue to charm us. A little. Finish: short, dusty and cardboardy, yet there are pleasant honeys and some orange that keep it afloat like an American aircraft carrier, if you please. Comments: let us say it has been losing its fruit at great speed.
SGP:452 - 82 points.

Go on then, shall we do this sort of thing again? …

Highland Park 20 yo 1966/1986 (86° US Proof, Duthie for Corti Bros., USA)

Date of last tasting, 15 March 2006 (WF 89). Let us say that the Corti brothers in Sacramento are legendary… Cadenhead/Duthie’s as well, of course. Colour: white wine. Nose: wait, here the opposite occurs, we are faced with an immense sauvignon blanc, fresh tar, equally fresh concrete, chalk of great beauty, almost Champagne-like, along with bandages and embrocations. It is beautiful, very beautiful, and the passing years have had no hold over it, quite the contrary. Mouth: incredibly Asian in style, on very great sake and aged wild pu-ehr tea from even before Mao Zedong. Quite. This is grand, very grand indeed, even if austere and almost philosophical. Finish: extraordinarily long, packed with carbon, liquorice, tar and small salted lemons. Do not resist, it would be futile. Comments: this time we are raising our score, with joy, delight and confidence. What a creature! Corti Bros., that truly was something. For us, that was America before you-know-who, before the great cultural decline, before the advent of vulgarity, before the exclusive rule of money (S., that will do, perhaps?) But it’s temporary, they’ll be back in dazzling form eventually, to our delight.
SGP:562 - 92 points.

We might as well stop there, with an old HP that, as it happens, we’ve never actually tasted before…

Highland Park 16 yo 1970/1986 (53%, Intertrade, 258 bottles)

But what a marvel! It should be noted that Nadi Fiori, the head of Intertrade, is undoubtedly the most elegant, the most refined and the best-mannered of all the figures in the whisky world. An absolute star, a modesty alas gone out of fashion, and simply someone we would miss terribly if he did not exist. In short, we love him with a deep and sincere affection, he is the Major Italian. And on this occasion, we are reminded that whisky is, in the end, merely a matter of people, the rest is sheer trumpery. Well then, shall we taste this little HP?... Colour: full gold. Nose: as elegant as its proprietor, waxy, laden with overripe and less overripe apples, bergamots and kumquats, mead and cider. There is a rustic side of great beauty. With water: honeys of every stripe and slightly sharp dried fruits take command. Mouth (neat): grand, still rustic, bitter, combative, rugged, full of chlorophyll and… seawater. In truth, this is not exactly playing about. With water: waxes and polishes, farmhouse ciders, unexpected touches of strawberries, yet strawberries do often surprise us during tastings, even in the heaviest of peat monsters. Herbal infusions. Finish: long and more earthy. One would gladly drink this with Parma ham. The strawberry refuses to yield in the aftertaste. Comments: this sort of rich and slightly improbable profile, not so easily placed within a modern aromatic cluster, puts texture to the fore, a dimension that does seem to be fading somewhat from contemporary whiskies.
SGP:561 - 91 points.

Bye-bye, that’s quite enough Highland Parks. See you soon with something else…

(KC, you’re a star)

Check the index of all Highland Park we've tasted