Highland Park 1999/2016 Gordon & MacPhail (TWE Exclusive)
Every so often the people over at The Whisky Exchange bottle a cask or two exclusively for their shop. This Highland Park is the latest example of that. It has matured in a first-fill bourbon cask and comes from independent bottler Gordon & MacPhail.
Highland Park 1999/2016 (56,6%, Gordon & MacPhail for TWE, C#4260)
Nose: Pretty sweet at first nosing, with honey and vanilla. There’s barely a hint of peat smoke. Fairly creamy. I like the lemon custard. Has a grassy quality too, straw mainly.
Taste: Ginger, cloves and white pepper. A tad briny, with a small amount of peat. But the fruits are also here, although not overtly so. Pineapple, peach. Some mango too. A bit too much heat.
Finish: Warming. Brine and charred oak. Some pear. Fairly long.
Rating: 84
It does everything well, but nothing really sticks out.
Thijs is a spirits writer and accredited liquorist from The Netherlands. He runs the blog Words of Whisky and contributes to a number of Dutch and international publications.
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