Highland Park 8 yo Ferraretto Import vs Highland Park 1976 First Cask #2013
Modern Highland Park can be very good at a fairly young age, as the recent batch of un-named Orkneys suggest. Assuming they are in fact Highland Park. Though they are perhaps more for the seasoned palates than the tenderfoots. But today:
Highland Park 8 yo Ferraretto Import 43% ~circa mid 70s bottling
Nose: Ha! why does it already have something in line with modern Highland Parks. Dried moss, heathery hilltops and salt spray. Caked black earth and the most dessicated herb rack. A bit of overripe fruit along with musty old books and wet leather, and just smoking charcoal dust. By the way, the more whisky I drink the more I keep coming back to Highland Park.
Palate: Full of dried and desiccated vegetation like sphagnum and heather, thin bark scrapings, and salty wet rocks. Rather alright but it does a funny turn towards a strange musty-ripe note, like week-old fruit or moldering wet leather. Grows more salty and smokier as well.
Finish: Medium, quite some ripe notes, wet wood, salt, smoke not at all weak really. Not very convincing.
Highland Park 25 yo 1976 First Cask #2013 46%
Nose: Interesting, the smoke seems turned up here. There’s still lots of these little mossy-earthy heathery notes, but it’s tuned to a more phenolic vibe. Thick black earth and also scraped bark again. Some hay and mead notes. A kind of sweetly scented paraffin. Lots more peat. Phenolic but not in a way the Islay drinker is used to.
Palate: Again lots of earth and barky-lite phenols. Dried out firewood, and cold char. Clean unmoldy camphor. Smoke and burning twigs. Growing salty even how odd. And with a warm zesty afterglow. Not an easy one but undoubtedly rewarding.
Finish: Long, phenols and smoke, wheelbarrows of black earth and also that sweet paraffin, with a touch of zest.
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