![]() ![]() Very dark, it has a complexity and a slight, surprising bitterness to it. Extremely complex, and miles away from the HP 25. Highland Park 30 Years Old – Served with the main course, working dazzlingly well. It was claimed HP 25 was a good fit for desserts, but it didn’t do all that much for me before or during the last course. Heavy, heavy on the alcohol, the oak character overpowered the spirit’s sweetness. This year’s 96.2-proof bottling wasn’t on hand, so we had last year’s version, a 101.4-proof expression. Highland Park 25 Years Old – Actually served fifth alongside dessert, this was my least favorite Scotch of the night. My favorite of all the Highland Park bottles, and a veritable bargain compared to many other brands. Hints of pepper play with burnt sugar, making this a sugar & spice & everything nice concoction that I couldn’t stop from going back to time and time again (as is evidenced by the nearly empty glass in the photo!). Still 86 proof, but even darker, exhibiting exotic, nutmeg and cinmamon flavors over hefty oak. ![]() Highland Park 18 Years Old -Take the 15 and kick it up another notch: You’ve got HP 18. Also 86 proof, it’s hot on the palate but goes down very easy. Lots of oak (due to heavy use of American oak barrels) and the toasty, peaty smoke is palpable. Considerably darker than the 12, and sweeter too. Highland Park 15 Years Old – Amazing what a difference three years can make. Mild smoke, peat, and honey all work well in the HP 12, but it’s not nearly as memorable as some of the other expressions. ![]() Highland Park 12 Years Old – A fairly standard, but appealing 86-proof single malt, quite pale and definitely the choice for anyone who’s drinking with soda or using the spirit in a cocktail. Without further ado… the Highland Park line: As you can see by the photos, things can get complicated rather quickly when you have six glasses of Scotch in front of you.) (I also skipped the Blood & Sand cocktail in favor of a neat glass of the 12-year-old HP, so I could have a basis for comparison through the evening. I’m reordering them here by age just to make it easier to follow. The results, I can say with authority, are quite delicious.Īs you can tell by the menu, the Scotch expressions were served slightly out of order. The company says it spends $20 million a year on wood alone, more than any other Scotch distillery, despite having a fraction of the output of some of the larger brands. Barrels are harvested from Spanish and, in a rare move among Scotch-makers, American oak, and all barrels are filled first in Spain with Oloroso Sherry. Over the evening, Daraz gave us the rundown on Highland’s methodology, which seems to leave absolutely nothing to chance. Highland Park’s six different bottlings run from 12 to (now) 40 years of age, and each is a unique expression of malt whisky. The company’s facility is the northernmost distillery in all of Scotland. Orkney is so remote that our host, Martin Daraz, said there are less than 30 living trees on the island where Highland Park Distillery is based, the wind and salt spray making short work of the rest of the vegetation. Highland Park is an Orkney Islands-based distillery, a smaller Scotch producer that puts out 2 million liters of spirits a year and is found on the set of tiny islands beyond the far northern tip of Scotland. While I’m still recovering from gulping down six glasses of Scotch in lieu of wine on Thursday night (pacing yourself when you’re thirsty during a meal is surprisingly hard!), I have to say the gathering that Highland Park was gracious enough to invite me to was decidedly memorable. It isn’t every day you get to taste the complete lineup of a serious Scotch producer in one sitting… and have a gourmet dinner to go along with it. ![]()
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