A Majestic Tipple (Highland Park 12 Year Old Whisky)

Member Name: Caroline R

Product:	Highland Park 12 Year Old Whisky
Date:	14/03/01 (316 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well-balanced, smoky/flowery/peaty flavour

Disadvantages: A bit on the pricy side

Well, there I was, wandering into Dooyoo with the intention of posting an opinion about Glenfiddich, only to discover that the category doesn’t let you write one! I wondered why the “Speyside Whisky” category was so sparsely populated and now I know. Let’s hope that gets sorted out at some point so we can all dive in and fill it up.

So, here I am, trekking north to the Orkney Isles, where Highland Park is the better known (in England anyway) of the two malts. I have never seen Orkney’s other malt, Scapa, on sale and have never tried it so I can’t give you an opinion on it, but I will look out for it and hope to have a taste at some time in my life.

The first thing I love about Highland Park is the name. I know that shouldn’t really be particularly important – if it tasted horrible then the name wouldn’t save it – but it gives a strong sense of majesty to which the drink itself certainly lives up. The wild, isolated and rugged connotations of “Highland” contrast perfectly with the more sedate, regulated and regal images of “Park”.

The taste is similarly balanced and contrasting. There is a sort of sweet, very subtle, smokiness to it which I have not encountered (so far) in any other malt. As personal tastes go, I am a big fan of smoky flavours so this is the aspect of Highland Park which I particularly enjoy. There is also, however, a hint of what I would call “floweriness” - not a very professional-sounding term, but it’s what comes to mind when I smell and taste Highland Park. By “floweriness” I mean a type of sweetness that is fragrant and gentle, not intrusive and sickly. It is a little bit peaty, too, but none of these flavours overpower the others – all are subtle and are brought out more by the mood of the drinker than by any imbalance in the drink.

Highland Park, along with Bunnahabhain and The Famous Gr
ouse (hmmm... bit of a contrast there) and a few others which I can’t at the moment remember, are owned by Highland Distilleries, but I have heard the tale that Highland Park started out as an illegal smuggling operation organised by a Presbyterian minister who used his church pulpit to stash his dodgy wares. This is the sort of story which appeals to me and is one of the reasons why I developed an interest in malt whisky. Malt whisky is not just a drink but an experience, and the historical part of that experience has great attractions for me.

On the downside, Highland Park tends to be more expensive than most other malts. One-off, very old bottles of it crop up occasionally at well over a thousand quid, which might be OK for a serious collector but it does mean that no-one has ever had the pleasure of drinking it. For a recently bottled, 12 year old Highland Park, however, you would still pay several pounds more than you would for most other similarly aged malts. I confess I don’t know why this is, but I do know that once you have a taste of Highland Park, the price doesn’t seem quite so important.

Summary: