HoHoHo Merry Christmas. Right, now that that’s out of the way we can get down to what really matters at this time of year, the true meaning of Christmas day and the tradition practised in households the world over. I speak of course about overindulgence. I was racking my brains about what to do for my Christmas day tasting this year. The selection is usually an organic one, very much dictated by what samples fortuitously come my way throughout the latter half of the year. I will often accrue an excess of particularly fine examples from one distillery or another and when I see this beginning to happen I tend to sit on these samples until a suitable occasion comes around for gorging on them all in one big dramgasm. So it seems that this year I have managed to grow a sizeable stash of top notch Highland Parks. Many of them are legendary drams that will need, like the distillery itself, little introduction. So without further ado, don your anti-maltporn, glare resistant Christmas googles, arrange yourself comfortably by the fire, turn your computer’s jealousy filters all the way up to eleven and lets proceed…

We’ll start old and work our way forwards…

Highland Park 1955-1985. 30yo. G&M for Intertrade. 216 bottles. 53.2%. 75cl. 

A legendary HP, one I’ve been dying to taste for several years now. Bottled in the year of my birth. Does that make 1985 a good year for whisky..?

Colour: Light Amber

Nose: It’s light at first, all on resinous polish, herb liqueurs and some wonderfully crusty seashore aromas. Leafy and fresh with notes of pine needles, earthy peat, cloves, orange liqueurs, menthol and sultanas. This one is a real slow burner, it’s really taking its time to unfold. Game, roast butter, dried herbs, hints of roast garlic, fruit squash, greengages, camphor and salt. Very nervous and beautiful with a wavering austerity that keeps everything on its toes. The peat becomes quieter with more focus on citrus and crystallised fruits with that soft lapping seashore character in the background. Further farmy/industrial notes of tar, hessian and stables begin to shine through. With water: softer notes of wax, tea, green fruits, minerals, wet earth, wild flowers, natural honey, coal dust, magnificent.

Palate: Fantastic and hugely complex delivery, masses of green olives, brine, sea water, oysters, orange juice, all kinds of liqueurs and subtle spice notes. Herbaceous, waxy, briny, phenolic and concentrated. Bitter orange marmalade, coriander seeds, liquorice, dark chocolate, mulled wine (very festive), damsons and citrus infused green tea. What a stunning profile. With water: wow! It became drier but also fuller and even more expressive, big luxurious notes of salted chocolate, roasted nuts, toast, more green and black olive flavours, seaweed, green peats and motor oil.

Finish: Long, leafy, peaty and starting to become also a bit smoky, like boiler smoke. More seashore freshness, greenery, seaweed, tea, crystallised citrus fruits and mineral notes. Beautiful.

Comments: A wee masterpiece. Displays everything that is brilliant about Highland Park. What a stunning whisky.

Score: 95/100

It should be noted that this in NOT the actual bottling but is from the same CASK series by G&M. The one I'm tasting was bottled under an identical label but the strength is 53.2% not 54.6% like the one pictured. I couldn't get a picture of the bottle I have the sample from so this is for illustration purposes.

Highland Park 1955. G&M CASK series. Bottled mid-late 1980s. 53.2%. 75cl. 

This one should be fascinating to taste against the Intertrade 55 because they are from the same bottler, same era and identical strengths. Same whisky? lets find out…

Colour: Amber (a tad darker than the intertrade)

Nose: Ok this is not the same whisky but its the same immediate quality. This one is all on freshly baked brown bread, heather, smoke, peat oils, boiler sheds and something like medicine liqueur. Super rich industrial and farmyard characters dominate at first nosing. Then we get notes of warm oatmeal, methol, antiseptic, tar and coal. This one is more up front and obvious but no less beautiful than the Intertrade. Starts to develop a more nervous citrus quality, lots of oranges and lemons manifest as marmalade, crystallised peel and liqueur qualities. This one feels like a bigger whisky than the Intertrade but the similarities are undeniable, could they be the same whisky just separated by their time in different bottles? Probably not but it’s fun to think about. With water: now it becomes even more minty, leafy and finally a stunningly soft and elegant coastal freshness envelops the whole thing. Ancient peat smoke, dried herbs, smoked garlic, heather smoke, eucalyptus and flowers. Another utter beauty.

Palate: This one delivers a much more direct and concentrated profile at first, dry leafy notes with bags of oranges, bitters, touches of nice oak, spices, chocolate and background phenols. After eight mints, tobacco, aniseed, cured meats and aged demerara rum. Actually this is one of those aged malts that seems to en-corporate stylistic aspects of old brandy and old rum, in the way that the best wood aged spirits tend to converge after several decades. With water:  water brings back these wonderful baked bread savoury notes, along with more eucalyptus, turmeric, cinnamon and aloe vera. Quite green and fresh now. The character of the sherry is so perfectly present and simultaneously restrained, perfect balance, just like the Intertrade.

Finish: Another long, resinous, waxy, crystallised and gloriously fruity beast. Lashings of salt, sinewy meats, hints of tar, boiler sheds, coal, wild flowers and natural honey notes.

Comments: I suspect this is from sister casks rather than a separate bottling of the same whisky. It feels bigger and slightly left field of the Intertrade. But it’s still just as brilliant, I’ll not waste time trying to split hairs, same score…

Score: 95/100

I should add that I forgot to take my hardrive home with me over Christmas, I had several photos relevant to this session on it so unfortunately I am having to scavenge photos from elsewhere on occasion. This one for instance I stole from Whiskyfun. Sorry Serge.

Highland Park 1956-1986. G&M for Intertrade. 216 bottles. 55.6%. 75cl.

Miracle of miracles I have the ‘sister’ HP bottling for Intertrade, how convenient. This is how I like to think the dialogue between the two companies went back in early 1986…

Intertrade: “Oh Mr G&M, thankyou so much for beautiful Highland Park bottling last year. It was so tasty. We already finish over half of bottles. We drink faster than we can make fake of empties.”

G&M: “Nae bother Mr Intertrade! Wud ye like another Highland Park. Mebe a 1956 this time?”

Intertrade: “Oh Mr G&M that would be most appreciated. Please this time remember to make seals a little less tight. In Italy it is tradition that we have bottles very easy to open. This way is more easy to refill bottle. Just for personal display you understand.”

G&M: “Nae bother big man. Yer dram is on its way!”

What is also interesting to note is that there are also 216 bottles of this one. This seems to be a typical trait of early single casks from the 60s-80s. Strengths and bottle numbers were often identical from cask to cask, remember the different casks of old Clynelish for Giacconne in 69 and 71, both the same strength. It may be simply that they couldn’t be bothered printing labels with too many differences or maybe they liked to bottle things in terms of numerical symmetry. Whatever the reason it seems curious.

Colour: Light rosewood.

Nose: This one has a much more overt sherry influence, a wonderful cocktail of roasted nuts, sultanas, cognac, beeswax, balsamico and dark stewed fruits. Behind that there are some stunning notes of cocoa, rancio, pipe tobacco, salted chocolate, pot-pourri and then the most beautiful ancient wax/peat combination.  Gets progressively greener and lusher with fantastic notes of green fruits, fruit syrups, lemon balm, limoncello and brilliant vigorous saltiness. This is my definition of perfect sherry. With water: now we have something like minted peat (or peated mint?), but otherwise it’s just more of everything that’s gone before only more earthy, luxurious and relaxed. One of those stunningly aromatic drams you could nose for hours.

Palate: The alcohol is surprisingly more pronounced here but the palate is very consistent with the nose. Loads of chocolate, pristine sherry, rancio, molasses, dark rum, stewed fruits, soft, herbal peat notes and a sharp lick of salt. The heat dies down a bit and we get lots of mustard seed, black pepper, bacon jam, espresso coffee, salt, tar and seaweed. Lets add water… Oh god, a fantastic and thick bed of mint, sherry, peat, salt and resinous fruit. A masterpiece. I’ll not bother going any further.

Finish: Drying, dark fruits, toasted cereal, soft sherry, gentle aged peat oils, salts… everything.

Comments: I always thought the 1955 was the best but I think I prefer this one. It’s not quite as complex as the 55 perhaps but it is a true masterpeice of poise, concentration, balance, harmony and execution of flavour. I adore this dram.

Score: 96/100

Another picture I had to steal. This one came from Geert Beero's Facebook photos, thanks Geert. The Dragon is evidently the one on the left. Sadly the 1958 and the John Scott's will not appear in today's tasting. Never mind, I suppose I'm in no position to complain about a lack of 1950s Highland Park.

Highland Park 1961-1997. ‘The Dragon’. Robertson of Kirkwall. 48.1%. 70cl. 

Another of these legendary and elusive ‘Dragons’. The 1961 is a little more ‘obtainable’ than the 73s and certainly than the old 25yo purely by virtue of being the most recently bottled, I imagine this will be my only opportunity to taste it before it vanishes into the mists of time. This one was opened and poured by the great Dominiek Bouckaert at Lindores Whisky Festival back in October. Many thanks Dominiek.

Colour: Dull gold

Nose: The most wonderfully fresh polished peat at first with natural sea salt crystals and coal smoke. Wonderfully industrial, old style and expressive. We’re not that far from the 1955 Intertrade it seems. Lots of herbs, oils, wax, menthol, tiny, complex touches of medicine and all kinds of delicate sub aromas that hint at honey, white fruits and minerals. A farmy contingent of stables, hay, dry dusty earthy notes and nice manure arrives all wrapped up in menthol throat sweets and fresh mint. Quite simply a beautiful aged coastal malt that still feels super fresh and wonderfully alive in the glass. Goes on with more of these classical herbal liqueur qualities such as notes of caraway, liquorice and aniseed, touches of freshly squeezed orange juice, fresh pumpkin, green peppercorns and a wonderfully green and rustic coastal aspect. With water: lemon drops, more mint, more salt, warm toasted cereals, melted butter, raisins and green peat.

Palate: Super resinous, polished, waxy and biting with a brilliant soft, heathery peat note. Green banana, ripe pear, apple peelings and olive oil. The nose was closer to the more lavish 50s style but the palate is really reminiscent of the more open, earthy and polished 60s style HPs. This one really reminds me of many old Duncan Taylor and John Scott’s casks from the 60s, a very transitional era example. Goes on with more leafy fruits, nectarines, delicate tropical notes, plums, apricots, eucalyptus sweeties and some subtle nutty notes. Cocoa, earl grey tea, distant bonfire smoke, mead, minty honey and white chocolate. I’m not sure this needs water at all but it’s cask strength so I suppose I’d better try and retain a vague sheen of professionalism. With water: salty peat, resinous and crystallised fruits, orange liqueur and more mint.

Finish: Long and full of mint, soft peats, little drying pockets of salt and citrus fruits. Basically more of everything that’s gone before.

Comments: Not as blinding as the 50s bottlings but then that is some serious competition. This still blows the majority of other bottlings right out of the water.

Score: 93/100

Highland Park 19yo OB. Italian import. Early 1980s. 43%. 75cl. 

This one was probably distilled sometime around the mid 1960s.

Colour: Amber

Nose: This is interesting, its a much quieter style of HP (probably due to the low abv) all on fresh butter, grass, heather, herbs and hints of tobacco and old cigar boxes. Another great example of pristine sherry, all on dried fruits, figs, nuts, furniture polish and wax with a more industrial coal and soot quality hovering about in the background. Brilliantly integrated wood an distillate characteristics. Nots of snickers, salted peanuts, seaweed, it’s growing more and more coastal with time, now brilliantly fresh and expressive. Those soft, almost fluffy peat notes get bigger in the background. Typical and brilliant HP.

Palate: Big for 43%, lots of that perfect sherry but also an unexpected creaminess, like buttermilk and vanilla cream with loads of roasted nuts, muesli, chocolate, treacle and dark fruits thrown into the mix. Buttered toast, mocha, hot chocolate, hints of tcp and mouthwash and then grassy and milky notes. A really lovely mix of oddly contrasting style here, they work beautifully together and make the whole thing very entertaining and compelling. More tobacco with woodsmoke, touches of brown sugar and a little juicy oak.

Finish: Long, delicately drying and full of dark chocolate, biscuits, mead, heather, honey, soft peats and little flacks of mint.

Comments: One of these great old officials that works brilliantly as an easy drinking but full flavoured whisky. This is a beautiful dram that shows brilliant sherry characters but also a wonderful and open Highland Park personality, great distillery character.

Score: 91/100

Highland Park 1966-1986. 20yo. Duthie’s for Corti of San Francisco. 86 US Proof. 75cl. 

An unusual and quite rare Us bottling of HP by the legendary Duthy & Co.

Colour: White wine

Nose: This is very different, the wood is much quieter, obviously refill, so this one is all on distillate attributes. It starts on bags of oysters, minerals, mustard seeds, white pepper, soft coastal notes and a nice combination of green, white and tropical fruits. It’s one of those industrial HPs with lots of motor oil, hessian, oily rag and boiler shed aromas. Other notes of lemon grass, camphor, green tea, soft medical touches and lanolin. It’s a quiet HP not such a beast like some of the older ones but the complexity and the quite genteel coastal/highland notes are particularly beautiful. Goes on with green fruits, grass and wax with further notes of lamp oil, wet pebbles and rainwater.

Palate: Not so different from some of the very good recent HPs by Duncan Taylor, Signatory and many of the German independents as well. All on oils, minerals, boiler sheds, exhaust fumes, smoke, camphor, resin and big citrus qualities. We call those ones a bit old school so I’d call this one a bit modern by comparison. I love how naked it is, the wood is almost totally silent in this one. Lots of acrid salt, lemon juice, light honey, white pepper, bandages, toothpaste, coal dust and fennel seeds. Hints of peppered mackerel, kippers, brine, white flowers, brown bread and mixed spice.

Finish: Quite long and lemony with bags of flints, pebbles, minerals, flowers, lemongrass, thyme, cereals and something a little vegetal towards the end.

Comments: This one is a little odd, if it has said distilled 1990 bottled 2010 I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid, maybe that says a lot about how Highland Park has or hasn’t changed in the past forty years (although we all know it has). I might be tempted to say I’m disappointed given the vintage but it is a very good whisky so I really shouldn’t get drawn into that whole expectations malarkey. A fascinating dram by any measure.

Score: 90/100

This is a sample from a sample so I didn't actually get to photograph the actual bottle. It is from an impeccable source though so I'm not too worried.

Highland Park 1972-1998 26yo. Signatory ’10th Anniversary’ series. Cask no: 1632. 213 of 252 bottles. 55.7%. 70cl.

Moving into the 1970s now, lets see what changes come our way..?

Colour: Gold

Nose: A slow moving wall of polish, fragrant oils and various honeys at first nosing which quickly gives way to earl grey tea, kelp, old rope, seashore and wet peat. One of these coastal/farmy HPs that are so gorgeous. Keeps on developing, moving quickly now into much fruitier territories, lots of kumquats, peaches, melon and nectarines with touches of ripe banana as well. Horse stables, hay, sack cloth, coal dust, putty, plums and quince jelly. Very controlled, expressive and quite beautiful, another of these perfect casks that just teases all the right aspects of the distillery character out into full glory. With water: a little more buttery now with notes of natural vanilla, whipped cream, white pepper and boiled cereals. Daisies, lanolin, olive oil and some lovely generic seashore notes.

Palate: Fruit syrups, drying polish, clean oak, mustard, hessian, chamomile tea, bay leaves, brown sugar and olive oil, a great and complex attack straight away. Becomes quickly coastal, fruity and mentholated with those background slightly metallic and phenolic aspects. Very reminiscent of some Springbanks from the same era actually. Some floral notes of geranium and juniper then sunflower seeds, dandelions, cinnamon, watercress and some pebbley mineral qualities. With water: now it becomes beautifully bready and savoury with lashings more olive oil, tiny flecks of fragrant soap in a very good way and quite ashy and lemony.

Finish: Longish but quietly so, savoury and citric with notes of herbs, lemongrass, cereals, touches of medicine, oils, green fruit and salt. Medium dry and very beautiful.

Comments: Not as as stellar as some of the others we’ve had so far but still a fantastic dram. It’s also interesting to see how the style sort of evolved again and is separate from the 50s and 60s distillates.

Score: 90/100

Highland Park 1973 ‘The Dragon’. Robertson of Kirkwall. Bottled April 1992. Cask 13307*. 58.9%. 75cl.

*Update. Thanks to Gunnar for getting me this info from an old letter he received from the Robertson Group. It seems my below assertion that there are three different 1973s may well be incorrect. I’ll do further research and get back to you.

Another incredibly rare ‘Dragon’. They were all privately owned casks bottled for the owner’s small shop on Orkney. Besides the 1961 and the old 25yo there are also at least two other 1973s, one at 56.4% and another at 56.6% that I tried back in 2009 and found to be utterly stunning so I have high hopes here. The 1973s were bottled sometime in the late 80s or very early 90s and were bottled in whatever cheap containers were to hand, usually bargain bin end wine bottles, as is the case here. No cask types or numbers or any other info than strength or vintage were ever stated as far as I know. This one was opened at our pre-sale tasting at Mulberry Bank Auctions the other week, I didn’t include it in that post because I was keen to hang onto it and put it in this line up.

Colour: Dark Amber, almost like blood orange.

Nose: Wow! An incredibly clean, pristine, coastal and aromatic sherry with loads of wax, preserved lemons, sea salt, brine, salted almonds, kelpie beer and eucalyptus oils. Goes on with notes of kippers, lamp oil, hessian, cumin, greengages, gooseberry jam and orange bitters. This is very reminiscent of the 56.6% bottling, sister casks maybe? Gets a little more medicinal with time, hugely expressive with many different kinds of tea, citrus and oil notes dancing about. Also some gentle peat and oily phenols floating about in the mix. Really fantastic. With water: more mineral qualities now with enhanced notes of graphite and pencil shavings, sheeps wool, touches of creosote and some startling notes of freshly shopped mint. Still tons of fresh citrus, oils, coastal notes and gentle, super clean sherry aspects.

Palate: Nervous, salty sherry with more wax, wood resin, dark fruits, citrus peel, crystalised fruits, seaweed, crab meat, dried herbs and salted liquorice(?). Wonderfully concise and in keeping with the nose, almost like a continuation of that profile. Mineral notes ,wet pebbles, lemon oil, a hint of balsamico, cured meats and something quite leathery as well. Like the greatest Highland Parks this seems to be a real all rounder. With water: salted butter, green fruits, dundee cake, heather ale, camphor, green tea, lemon juice on oysters, spicy calamari, lemon grass, coriander, lime juice, fragrant spices and chilli. You could make ceviche with this whisky! Goes on and on…

Finish: Super long, drying, utterly coastal and fresh with all kinds of black and green olive notes as well, you couldn’t fall asleep while you were still tasting this, it’s so lively and spellbinding. What a great dram!

Comments: This is equal to if not better than the 56.6% version I tried a couple of years ago as far as I’m concerned. A hidden masterpiece.

Score: 93/100

Highland Park 1973-2003 30yo. Jack Weibers. Cask 8396. Bottle 014 of 168. 58.7%. 70cl.

Colour: Straw gold

Nose: This is very different from the Dragon, a beautiful tableau of lemon juice, ashes, minerals and seashore notes. Perfectly pristine, pin sharp and alive with a vibrant coastal freshness, pure island whisky. Then some savoury hints of brown bread and yeast with lime juice, chives and oysters with hints of sage stuffing (seasonal again) and black pepper. Lots of limes, kiwis, green apples, grass, flints and wet pebbles. Develops along lines of green fruits, bitters, touches of orange liqueur, more salty dried herbs and pasatry. Brilliant. With water: this one swims beautifully, its full on lush, green, softly peaty and fresh now. Still beautifully coastal but with a more relaxed mineral quality and lots of elegant fruitiness.

Palate: Big crisp saline notes with big bags more lime and lemon juice all over fresh oysters and smoked mussels. Fresh coriander, shallots, muesli, coal, tar, vanilla cream, and salt and vinegar crisps. Still very ashy and nicely drying with notes of sandal wood, cereals, shellfish, green peat, black peppercorns, taramasalata, cumin and smoky bacon. With water: more balance now between savoury, coastal and farmyard qualities, notes of motor oil, seashore, hessian, camphor, freshly chopped parsley, riesling and buttered toast. Delicious stuff.

Finish: Long, lemony, ashy and mineral, basically full circle back to the beginning. A glorious pantheon of metal, phenols, citrus, salt, fragrant wood notes and green fruits.

Comments: Another of these perfect ‘background’ casks that allows the distillery a huge voice but simultaneously provides it great maturity. This was probably bottled at its peak if you ask me. Beautiful old coastal Highland Park, my favourite style from this distillery, it’s so achingly evocative of its birthplace.

Score: 93/100

Highland Park 1975 32yo. OB for World Duty Free. Cask 6596. 50%. 70cl.

About time we tried an official I think.

Colour: Gold-Amber

Nose: We’re not far from the standard official 30yo here, lots of dried nuts, figs, resin, pine sap, putty and cedar wood. Some very beautiful influence from the wood but it manages to retain a keen freshness and there are some great fruit qualities in there as well. Lots of green fruits, crystallised citrus peel, bakes apples, banana bread, menthol and hints of aged cognac. Evidently this has come from another very good sherry cask. More of these typical notes of warm Moroccan spices and preserved lemons in brine. A nose that’s both classy and classic. Lets try with water… wow, super fresh now, a gentle lapping seashore (dear lord!) with all kinds of soft citrus qualities like lemon balm, orange liqueur, chocolate limes, vanilla cream and heather.

Palate: Warm and fruity on delivery, greengages, plum jam, muesli, dark fruits, prune juice, fig rolls, lemon wax and then lots of polish, candle wax, hessian and minerals. Goes on with turpentine, olive oil, fruit ice cream, cranachan, caramelised oatmeal and touches of balsamico. This one walks a lovely tightrope between savoury and sweet, lots of nectar and honey and gentle creamy qualities but also some of these typical and wonderfully savoury notes of brown bread and pastry. With water: richly resinous now, bags of pine needles, beeswax polish, dunnage, paint and stewed dark fruits. A great swimmer.

Finish: Long, earthy, soft, herbaceous, minty, oily, gently phenolic, coastal and mineral

Comments: Another great old HP, one that swims very well despite a natural strength that’s bordering on being relatively low. Great stuff.

Score: 91/100

Another pinched image. I stole this one from Diego Sandrin, sorry Diego.

Highland Park. 1977-1988. Duthie for Samaroli ‘Fragments’ Orkney. 648 Bottles. 50%. 70cl. 

Part of a famous series by the legendary Mr Samaroli. This is the youngest of the flight so it should be an interesting variant from all the others.

Colour: Runny Honey

Nose: This is heavier and peatier than the others at first nosing. Lots of coal, graphite oil, oily phenols, grist, barbecue smoke and quite a big presence of wax an mineral notes. Very old school, almost old Clynelishesque in its waxiness. Obviously that old young whisky style is something that disappears in the cask after about 15-20 years as it’s a style that is missing from all the others that we’ve already had where wood obviously altered it quite distinctly. This one has that young biting old style wax and mineral profile well intact. Lots of brine, kelp, smoked malt, soft medicine and old rope. Lemon oil, boiler sheds, farmyards, coal smoke and kippers.

Palate: Massive and hugely old style delivery with loads of lemon drops, wax, hessian, fresh citrus notes and bags of ashes and minerals. Really lively and beautiful. Continues along the same lines with camphor, tea tree oil, green tea, eucalyptus oil, wood resin, bonfire smoke and smoked mussels. Hints of strawberry liqueur, apple sauce, orange bitters and white flowers with more of these coastal/industrial qualities abound. A great and potent young Highland Park, one that shows the distillery’s peatier side really nicely.

Finish: good length with more of these really assertive mineral and wax notes, smoked wax (?), green peat, sea salt, pebbles, wild flowers and mead.

Comments: A great one. Loads of character, flavour and intensity. Although what is most fascinating is the way it shows a much more intense old style profile than many of the others, like said above, it seems that those ‘old highland’ characteristics you can find in old young malts is something that can diminish with greater time in wood. I wonder what those old Intertrade bottling from the mid 1950s tasted like at 15 years old rather that 30. We’ll never know but it’s nice to wonder.

Score: 92/100

Highland Park 1978-2011. OB for Global Travel Retail. 47.8%. 70cl.

And finally… this one was done this year for duty free and probably comes from a vatting of at least two casks.

Colour: Rich Amber

Nose: This is completely different from all the others. Firstly there is a much greater wood presence here, lots of extraction, shoe polish, pencil shavings, milk chocolate, vanilla cream and some odd vegetal qualities like over cooked asparagus and turnip. This really reminds me of my own living cask, in that it feels like the whisky has been over-stewed in far too active wood for too long. Some spices like cloves and nutmeg with other notes of cheap herb liqueur and celery. Really a bit odd this one. It’s not bad but it does struggle in comparison to all the others. I wasn’t going to add water but I think we’ll try it after all just in case… water seems to help nicely on the nose, there is more freshness, more greenery and even a few coastal hints. Although the woodiness is still quite evident.

Palate: Big tanicity at first from the wood, far too excessive if you ask me. Raw polish, wood shavings, dust, oak lacquer, stale mead, more turnips and parsnips, maybe some brussell sprouts as well (seasonal again), camphor, pine sap, cold tea, more tannins, sawdust and raisins. With water: bitter chocolate, some herbs, quite a big astringency and more boiled vegetable notes. Nettle tea, soda bread, cheap rum and finally a whiff of mint.

Finish: Fairly short and drying with a kind of empty tannic feel about it.

Comments: This no where near the giddying heights we started at. Did Highland Park suffer too much under the strains of modernisation by 1978? Probably not, I’ve had other wonderful 78s, I think this one has just spend a good decade too long in wood. You may say it’s a shame to finish on this one but actually it’s rather nice to be brought back down to earth after so many stellar drams. Maybe this is the cold turkey, morning after come down of boxing day compared to the mental festive frenzy of the 50s and 60s masterpieces. Anyway, it’s not a bad whisky, just too oaky, to the point of being detrimental I think. But if you’re a fan of wood y whiskies you’ll probably really enjoy it.

Score: 81/100

So, you’ve made it to the end. Well done. Or maybe you just skipped all the hot air and blether and looked at the scores, that’s fine too, I’m just pleased you made the effort.

After all that I’d like to mention briefly that all but two of these whiskies (the Dragons) were opened, poured and provided(at various stages) by the Highland Park gathering legend that is Oliver Humbrecht. Many thanks Olivier, keep them coming

And with that I bid you a merry, drunken, glorious, dazzling, filling, loving and joy soaked Christmas. May all you presents be liquid, your casks be single, your strengths be cask, your colours natural, your filtrations barrier only, your bottles ancient and your lovers young. From all of us here at Whisky Online have a wonderful Christmas, thankyou to anyone and everyone who has supported us throughout the past year and we hope to see you again in 2012. Now stop reading this pish, turn up the music and go pour yourself a large one!

Angus. 25/12/2011

Laphroaig 15 red label.... 'Hello!'

You may or may not know but my day job is as the whisky and wine specialist at a Glasgow based auction house called Mulberry Bank. When I took the job earlier this year I was very keen to instigate pre-sale tastings. Auction houses are generally quite stuffy places, lots of beards, shadows, dark corners, tweed jackets, crusty diamond earrings dangling from crustier ears and dust. Thankfully our auction house is the opposite, open, bright, spacious and, unsurprisingly, a pleasantly calm shade of mulberry. I was keen to embrace and promote whisky as something for drinking rather than as mere collectable tokens of profit. This was the inspiration behind putting together tastings that focus on old style, rare and antique bottlings. Last Friday we had our first of these pre-sale tastings, my tasting notes from the bottles we opened are below. It may have been my own tasting but without wanting to sound big headed I think it was one of the best line-ups for any UK based tasting this year. Ok that did sound big headed, but the point is essentially that in the uk these kind of bottles rarely feature in whisky tastings. It speaks volumes about the appreciation gap between UK based and continental whisky aficionados. There are good reasons for this. Firstly the majority of the ‘old bottlings’, many of which are amongst the greatest whiskies ever bottled, were largely done for Italy and various other continental European markets. Also the majority of people connected with whisky in Scotland work in the industry and as such are naturally more concerned with current market products. They shy away from talking about the fact that their whiskies have changed over the years, or bottle ageing, or any of the other issues that  these kinds of tastings unearth and serious whisky nerds tend to concern themselves with. So with that in mind I was keen to try and do a few old style tastings in Scotland. 

Glenmorangie 10yo. OB. 1980-1990. Single cask number: 4318. 60%. 75cl.

An old series of single cask, cask strength bottlings that are now becoming quite rare.

Colour: Gold

Nose: A nice balance between the old and the new. Clearly from a fresh bourbon cask with its aromas of linseed oil, vanilla pods, honeycomb, nutmeg and rice pudding. A very fresh and quite inviting profile that, even at cask strength, is in no way aggressive or overly hot. With time it begins to unveil notes of eucalyptus, fresh parsley, tinned chickpeas, graphite oil and a little fragrant wax. Open up further with orange liqueurs, marmalade, fragile spices and some fresh garden fruits. Really lovely development and a profile that I would describe as very classically Glenmorangie. That is fragrantly spicy, aromatic and elegant, not really a proper highlander in style but not a speysider either, something more individual between the two. Anyway I think you would be hard pressed to find a Glenmorangie these days that has this kind of aromatic complexity. Lets add water… With water it develops beautifully on green tea, wild flowers, minerals, more of these very natural and nuanced vanilla tones and some soft heathery notes. Hints of white pepper, flints, cereals, buttered toast and lilies. Wonderful stuff.

Palate: At full strength this is a big minty, spicy and oily whisky, loads of character and a big mouthfeel. Lots of sweet flavours on top of a more drying, soft tannic sensation. Excellent composure. Leafy and fresh with notes of soot, olive oil, earl grey tea, liquorice, mead, toasted brioche, fresh butter and spicy pumpkin soup. A rare example of a perfect bourbon matured winter dram, warming, balanced and with great depth of flavour. A lovely peppery quality as well that keeps you on your toes. With water: brilliant. A rich, spicy and fantastically concentrated dram, lots of green and earthy complexity and some quite resinous qualities as well. The balance between wood and spirit seems just about perfect.

Finish: Long, slightly mentholated, spicy, a little farmy, oily and with traces of minerals.

Comments: Glenmorangie are probably the leading exponents of modern wood technology these days but I think they have gone too far in that direction and the character of their great distillate has been lost. This is by far the best Glenmorangie I have tasted in years, it shows beautiful complexity, personality, development and balance. Clearly from a relatively active bourbon cask but not one that is so rigorously designed and controlled as to force the spirit into some kind of unified, souless conformity. This bottling shows just how good a fresh bourbon cask can be with Glenmorangie when the balance is struck right and the distillate is a allowed a little more free expression. Is this an extinct style of Glenmorangie?

Score: 91/100

Bowmore 12yo OB. Brown dumpy. Rotation late 1970s/early 1980s. Plastic screw cap. 40%. 75cl.

There are many versions of this one around, almost all seem to be very good.

Colour: Gold

Nose: A little tight at first but it is a freshly opened bottle. Lets give it a couple of minutes. Ahh now it speaks, typically lush tropical notes although its more focues on tinned fruits rather that the fresh fleshy kind. Lots of syrupy tinned pineapples, passion fruit puree and guava with hints of honeysuckle and a wonderfully resinous background saltiness. Those coastal notes become more and more dominant, dried seaweed, licks of brine, some lemon wax, wet pebbles and finally some very fragrant peat oils and wildflowers. A lovely mix of soft peat, mineral, coastal and tropical notes. Very typical of these old official Bowmores and not a speck of perfume in sight.

Palate: Big for 40%! Very salty, almost like burned salt, tropical fruits again, fresh ones this time, camphor, peat smoke, some very stony mineral notes, like licking wet salty granite. Brown bread, some yeasty gueze beer notes, sharp citrus juice, pineapple, citrus rind, limoncello and hospital gauze. Quite an acrid and powerful profile, very direct and not too easy but undeniably classy and quite beautiful as well. Again we’re very far away from the 80s perfumery style. More subtle floral notes of white flowers and honeysuckle come through after a while, then something like salted honey. Quite an intriguing palate, very entertaining.

Finish: Good length, very warming and full of fragrant smoke, heather and seaweed flavours, more minerals, flowers, salts and fruits. Great.

Comments: These old Bowmore dumpy OB bottlings are not hard to find and are generally all fantastic, I’ve never had a bad one.

Score: 91/100

Bowmore 21yo. OB. Seagull Label. Rotation early-mid 1990s. Batch code: L482A. 43%. 70cl.

The old 21yo bottlings were almost all stunners. If I’m not mistaken the last ‘vintage’ 12yo was the 1973. Which means this one was probably bottled around 1994/95. Anyway, it was certainly distilled in the early 1970s so were in very safe territory.

Colour: Light Amber

Nose: Quite a bit of polished sherry at first which is a bit surprising. Again a freshly opened bottle may take a while to open up. It quickly opens onto all kinds of soft, fleshy tropical fruit aromas, a big exotic fruit salad with background notes of creosote, freshly poured tar, old rope, hessian, some beautifully rich ‘aged’ qualities and fresh peaches. Really beautiful and ever so slightly understated which only adds to the charm. After time some soft notes of bonfire smoke, violets, sultanas and other dried fruits begin to come through. This is a beautifully composed nose and a style that I really adore, proper old school Bowmore. Further delicate notes of medicine, lychee, lemon skins and wax. Wonderful.

Palate: Big, drying, saline, resinous and very fruity, like a tropical fruit juice. A fantastically nervous balance between drying salty and coastal notes and big lush tropical characters. More of these great notes of seaweed, wax, tar, minerals, orange peel, lemon oil, some smoked cereals and oily medical notes like a suggestion of tcp. Still quite resinous and camphory on one side and immensely fresh, breezy and tropical on the other, a real multifaceted dram. Gets a little minty after time with also some more drying herbal qualities, like a rosemary eau de vie or something equally bizarre. Lemon thyme, wet pebbles and bitter chocolate.

Finish: Super long, clean, drying, very tropical and lively, wakes you up brilliantly. Leaves a salty crust around your gums (in a good way).

Comments: The 21yo bottlings were always superior to the 25′s in my wee opinion. This is maybe not as majestic as some of the earlier ‘vintage’ 21′s but this is still brilliant and delicious whisky.

Score: 92/100

Glenlochy 1969-1994. 25yo Rare Malts OB. 62.2% 75cl. 

From one of the very first batches of Rare Malts released back in 1994. Like many of the early batches this was a low outrun bottling and there are several different examples at varying strengths. All of them are now particularly hard to find.

Colour: Straw

Nose: Thick and quite astoundingly creamy on the nose at first, like some kind of vanilla infused motor oil. Notes of riesling, white pepper, petrol, cut grass, olive oil, lemon wax, pebbles, white fruits and minerals. Quite expressive at cask strength with surprisingly non intrusive alcohol. Becomes typically old highland and farmy with some wonderful notes of hay, stables and sheeps wool. With water: it beacame kind of ‘wider’ although it is still quite austere with lots of mineral and oily qualities. Dunnage, wet earth, soft peat, a touch of salt and more farmy notes. This is no easy whisky but it is still wonderfully creamy, quite an old style charmer.

Palate: Big and drying with notes of roast chestnuts, eucalyptus, white truffle oil, wild mushrooms, vegetal notes and some very savoury cereal notes. A little quiet and closed on the palate at full strength, lets try with water…  more of these creamy notes now, luxuriously creamy in fact but now with a huge herbal quality as well, like a dry herbal liqueur. A little medicinal as well with more mushroomy notes but also some fresher flavours of lemons and bay leaves. Quite light for a Glenlochy but still very elegant, austere, old style and complex.

Finish: Long, leafy, oily and mineral with notes of graphite oil, baked cereals, malted barley, vanilla cream and black tea.

Comments: I adore Glenlochy and this doesn’t disappoint, it’s a little lighter than I was expecting, old Glenlochys from this era are often a little more ‘extreme’. But this is a delightfully elegant and charming old style malt. Glenlochy is always a joy to drink, one of the most consistent of the silent distilleries.

91/100

Laphroaig 15yo OB. Red 15 label ‘Unblended’. Cork seal. Rotation mid 1980s. UK market. 40%. 75cl. 

Colour: Light gold

Nose: A cavalcade of tropical fruits, bandages, oysters, seaweed, antiseptic, iodine and creosote. What a blinding nose! The topical character is super intense and the peat a little quieter than normal, you might well mistake this for an old 60s Bowmore given it blind. It evolves further with notes of lemon wax, coal, camphor, sea air and yet more intense tropical complexity. Just simply stunning, the kind of fruit quality that simply does not exist in modern whisky.

Palate: Powerful at 40% as only Laphroaig can be. Drying, dusty seaweed notes with masses of tropical fruit salad over the top. Crushed sea salt, fresh top quality espresso, dark chocoalte, devastatingly quaffable, you could demolish a bottle of this in an hour with a couple of whisky chums by your side. Burnt peat, bonfire smoke, green fruits as well, moss, charcoal, barbecue sauce, tar, tcp, mouthwash, fresh mint, eucalyptus oils, Tunes throat sweets, dried herbs, many different kinds of tea, milk and Euthymol toothpaste. Lets stop this madness.

Finish: Hugely medicinal, drying, coastal and endless with a gloriously oily and green fading peat quality.

Comments: If I had to pick a distillery that has undergone the greatest extremes of change in character due to the modernisation of its production process then I’d pick Laphroaig. I’d love to see the guys at Laphroaig who insist their whisky hasn’t changed over the years taste something like this next to the current 10yo. It could almost be from a different distillery.

Score: 94/100

Balvenie-Glenlivet ‘As We Get It’. Macfarlane, Bruce & Co Ltd Inverness. Rotation early 1970s (around 1971/72). 105.2 Proof. 26 2/3 floz (75.7cl).

This was one of the earliest bottlings under the ‘As We Get It’ banner, a title that has been used by several different companies over the years. Macfarlane, Bruce & Co were the first if I’m not mistaken. There are several versions of this one floating around, most are fantastic so I have high hopes for this one.

Colour: White wine

Nose: Unmistakeably old school despite the heat of the high alcohol at first sniffing. A sackful of minerals, wet rocks, flints, all kinds of wax, white flowers, toasted cereals, lemon juice, turpentine and sheeps wool. Gun oil , steel wool, salt, sawdust and some quite pungent farmyard aromas as well. This is very close so some old Clynelish white label with its huge but stunningly beautiful austerity. Big notes of petrol and buttered toast, another one of these old style malts that smells very much like a great aged Riesling. Hints of silage, stables, motor oil and other oily industrial characters. And all this without even adding water! Lets try that now… water doesn’t change it too much, it just somehow becomes oilier, wider and richer. The waxy qualities become more fragrant and there are more of these notes of grass, citrus and wildflowers. It keeps on developing though, you could sit with this for hours probably.

Palate: Neat: this is a huge whisky, immensely waxy, oily, petroly, gree, flinty, oddly coastal and fat. Touches of camphor, medicine, peat, more massive oily notes and some beautifully smatterings of green and citrus fruits. About as extreme in this old style as it is possible to get, super clean but also very grumpy, difficult and wild, not at all sexy, swish or easy like so many modern malts. God I love this. More notes of flowers, hay, muesli, porridge, boiled grains, coal, masses of waxy mineral notes, butterscotch and tablet. If you like this extreme old style akin to old pre-Brora Clynelish then you’ll adore this. With water: it becomes a bit more savoury and bready but there are still these beautiful flourishes of old school sweetness, fresh malt, slight vegetality and notes of mashed potatoes. It’s still massively waxy, mineral and austere.

Finish: Super long, buttery, fat, oily, laden with white fruits, hessian, sheeps wool, hay, metallic notes, more wax, flints and cereals.

Comments: What a brilliant dram! It might as well be from another planet compared to modern Speysiders, let alone modern young Balvenies. The level on this bottle and the screw cap seal were both perfect which means that this whisky is probably as close as is possible to how it was when it was bottled. Combine that with that fact that it is almost certainly a very young whisky, certainly younger than 10, and it has come from very ‘quiet’ wood and you have an invaluable window onto a long departed style of distillate. These characters just aren’t found in modern Scottish whisky making sadly. Of course this style isn’t for everyone but I adore it and I think this is a particularly stunning example. What the hell did they do at Balvenie to eradicate such a distinctive character?!

Score: 94/100

People begin to take their seats for the tasting.

If you are one of the lucky people who attended this tasting and are wondering where the infamous Highland Park tasting notes are then rest assured they have been made but I’m holding them back for a particularly stellar christmas tasting that I am in the process of putting together.

As for the rest of you who didn’t go, this was just the first of what will hopefully be many tastings. The next auction is scheduled for March 28th so the pre-sale tasting will almost certainly be around about the 27th. Keep your diaries free and make a point of being in Glasgow then because if you thought this one was brilliant then just wait till you see what we’ll be tasting next time.

Life is endlessly strange. I suspected I would make good friends when I came here to Peru but the friendship I found with Stephen and Rupert over the last two and a half months has been something so left field and unexpected I think it will take a long time to fully comprehend it. This was all the more compacted at the start of last week when they both had to leave, one after the other, and return home, respectively to Ireland and England. I think it is easy to forget sometimes how vital our friends are. I found it all too easy in recent years to forget how deep a real friendship can go and how powerful an effect the presence of real friendship can have upon your life. Time here has been one long reminder of how wonderful great friendship can be. It was not grand friendship compounded by big memories and intense shared experience. It was friendship forged by the continual amalgamation of days spent working together and all the laughter, frustration and ideas that made up the foundations of those days. It was a durable friendship, one not easily dulled by the rub of close habitation and familiarity. A friendship that was born of happenstance, shared humour and common belief.

I accompanied Rupert out to the bus terminal last monday lunchtime. It was his last day and we left, appropriately enough, in a tuck tuck, loaded to the gills with his rucksacks over our knees. Riding down the Pan American highway in a familiar oven of heat and dust, it was not the sort of environment that would normally make you want to reach for a dram, nevertheless that’s exactly what we did. Rupert still had a miniature of Old Pulteney 12yo that his girlfriend had sent him as part of a care package from home over a month ago, we shared it as a silent digestive for the two ice lollies we had just bought for the road.

I don’t drink a lot of whisky here, so by default the quality of any dram I have is magnified out of all proportion by the distortion of starvation. I have probably said this a lot since I travelled here to Peru, in fact anytime I taste anything even remotely resembling decent whisky I have to restrain myself from writing an instantaneous blog post about how I have just discovered the greatest dram of all time. The best example was when Stephen and I were cooking breakfast for St Patrick’s day last week, for the Irish Coffee we had decided to serve we procured a bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label. I can officially say that standing in a muggy kitchen at 7am in the morning necking Red Label from the bottle and giggling like besotted schoolgirls is up there along with sipping 1950′s Highland Park as a divine whisky experience. In that foxhole of a kitchen Red Label was the greatest dram on earth and I was on cloud nine.

I always liked Old Pulteney, all of the range appeal to me. I love the coastal edge it always has, it has never disappointed me as a whisky, seemingly always fresh, zippy and flavoursome. But I was still surprised when I drank it in the back of that mototaxi though. I’ll admit that glugging whisky from a miniature bottle in the heat of a desert afternoon while simultaneously having your spine grated down by the suspension free ride is not the most honest olfactory environment in which to judge a whisky. However I was still taken aback by how intense the flavour of that simple whisky was to me. It reminded me of when I would be fortunate enough to have a sip of my Dad’s whisky when I was growing up. The privileged sensation of staying up late with the grownups while on a trip to Scotland and having a quiet taste of a 10yo Talisker. Those are some of the most powerful whisky memories to me, and as I sat in silence with Rupert in this horrible motorised metal bubble and passed the mini back and forth, I realised that the taste of this memory would stay with me forever as well. It is a potent experience that can make you feel like you are drinking whisky for the first time. To me that whisky was nothing but pure beauty and it seemed like the perfect liquid score to two grown men waiting silently to say goodbye to each other for a long time and trying not to cry. It also hit home just how much whisky relies on circumstance and company, a moment with a truly great friend can transform even the most mundane spirit into something special. Without vital people to share a whisky with it really is a drink without a soul, a pleasant collection of composed and naturally aided compounds and vapours, one that only comes alive when it can be bounced around the pitch of shared experience.

I will miss Rupert and Stephen, while I’m sad they’re gone from PSF I am keenly aware of the fact that you can never be so sad that it makes the experience not worthwhile. I’ll see them again when I return to the UK later this year but to say goodbye and watch them leave this place and this experience, something we’ll probably never have again, is undeniably hard. In the meantime I still have work to do here in Pisco, not to mention further traveling. I’ll just have to remember to bring a bottle of Old Pultney next time I see them.