Highland Park 30 yo 1987 2017 Mackillop’s #1532 46.3% vs Bowmore 17 yo 2004 / 2021 SMWS 3.327 Siren’s Song 57.1%
Been a while since my last. Plenty of things have kept me occupied but look its late March already!
Highland Park 30 yo 1987 2017 Mackillop’s #1532 46.3%
Another blazingly bright Highland Park in the mold of the late 80s and 90s, that is to say thoroughly mineral and salty, though this one is less sharply crystalline, with a lick of white smoke over choppy water and peatfires from the distant coast. The peat is elegantly underscored by a thin herbaceous-medicinal earthiness. Quinine, sage, heather, eucalyptus and just a pinch of camphor. Dried lemon rind and shiso leaf. Not much fruit here, though hints of something green and ascorbic are clear. It is the medicine that lingers past the finish, and while these Highland Parks are never muscular, there is something very rugged and enticing that keeps me coming back. 90 pts
Bowmore 17 yo 2004 / 2021 SMWS 3.327 Siren’s Song 57.1%
Now here’s a muscular and vibrant one. I think that from the late 90s the peat in Bowmore really took a step forward. This one is at once drily peaty, oily and medicinal in a salt and seaweed mixed with spilled crude kind of way, but the buffeting smoke rises from an oily BBQ griller in action somewhere, its dripping bacon and applewood, but just the smoke mind you – the eye of this Bowmore remains fixed on sharp sea salt and an emergent ripe fruitiness, with aspects of menthol, green sap, hot sand and dry firewood thrown in. 89 pts
Whiskyrific RSS
- Highland Park 25 yo 1990 / 2015 Cadenhead 50.6% vs Glen Moray 30 yo 1991 / 2022 Hidden Spirits #GLM9122 50.1%
- Highland Park 30 yo 1987 2017 Mackillop’s #1532 46.3% vs Bowmore 17 yo 2004 / 2021 SMWS 3.327 Siren’s Song 57.1%
- Glen Ord 28 yo 1992 / 2020 SMWS 77.65 49.3% vs Caol Ila 27 yo 1983 / 2010 Spirit of Caledonia 51.5%
- Craigellachie 20 yo 1972 / 1992 Cadenhead 53.3% vs Craigellachie 22 yo 1973 / 1995 Rare Malts 60.2%
- TTomatin 40 yo 1962 / 2002 Douglas Laing 44% vs Tomatin 19 yo 1976 / 1996 Cadenhead 55.9%
- Benrinnes 20 yo 1995 / 2018 La Maison du Whisky #6093 49.4% vs Benrinnes 20 yo 1997 / 2017 Cadenhead for Shinanoya #912 57.4%
- Ireland 27 yo 1988 / 2015 Nectar of the Daily Drams for La Maison 49.5% vs Secret Highlands 24 yo 1996 / 2020 Batch no.7 Finest Whisky Berlin 54.8%
- Single Malt Irish Whiskey 30 yo 1989 / 2019 The Whisky Cask Company #16044/16258 48.1% vs Single Malt Irish Whiskey 24 yo 1991 / 2016 The Whisky Cask Company #6847 55.8%
- Teaninich 12 yo 2007 / 2019 Single Malts of Scotland #301262 57.5% vs Secret Orkney 15 yo 2005 / 2021 Cooper’s Choice #121 56%
- Bunnahabhain 30 1989 / 2020 “Kinship” Hunter Laing 45.5% vs Laphroaig 24 1990 / 2014 Hunter Laing #HL14111 51.9%
whiskyrific 