I had the great good fortune to be invited to a guided blind tasting of twelve different Highland Park whiskies the other day. I was the (lucky and grateful) guest of F. Paul Pacult, one of the greatest spirits authorities in the world (and B.A.R. partner, Spirit Journal maven, Ultimate Beverage Challenge impresario, &c), who led the tasting. I learned a lot, not least that I have very good – or at least very expensive – taste. There were some remarkable spirits here.
Paul started off with a brief, fun lecture on whisky, Scotch in general, and specifically Highland Park, noting that he's tasted and reviewed more than 31,000 spirits, and that Highland Park is his favorite Scotch whisky. He said that "if someone were to ask me today what is the most complex of all spirits, I believe it's Scotch whisky. . .next after that I'd say mezcal." He mentioned that Highland Park is his favorite Scotch whisky, and specifically singled out Highland Park 18 as his pick for "the world's greatest spirit."
He went over the process of making whisk(e)y, touching on his six determining factors that affect its taste and the seven steps of production. (That's all fairly basic stuff for most spirits geeks, so I'll skip over this or put it in a separate post.) What makes Highland Park different from its Scotch brethren largely centers around its location and some of its process decisions. Highland Park's distillery is in Kirkwall, the capital of Orkney, the archipelago off the northern coast of Scotland. (The distillery is the northernmost malt distillery in the UK; it's half a mile north of the Scapa distillery, which makes some very different whiskies.) HP chooses to dry approximately 20% of its malted barley over peat, giving the finished product a little smokiness but by no means as much as some other malts (esp. those from Islay.) The Orkney Islands are windswept, low, wet, and almost entirely treeless due to the ever-present wind -- this means that the composition of the local peat is different than what you'd find in Islay or the Scottish mainland. It's heather, gorse, and other shrubby plants mainly, lending a floral note. HP peat is approximately 4,000 years old, formed roughly when the local Neolithic cultures built the breathtaking Ring of Brodgar not far away (Neolithic Orkney is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and there are several monuments built between 3180 and 2000 BC, about ten miles west of the distillery.) It's hand-cut from Hobbister Moor by the sea, where parts of the peat fields are around 9,000 years old. And, the water used for Highland Park all comes from Cattie Maggie's Spring near the distillery, which produces very hard, mineral water and gives the whisky part of its distinctive taste.
After having all that knowledge dropped on us, it was time to taste! All of these were blind to us while we tasted, and Paul told us what we'd had, after every few expressions. HP has an enormous line of whiskies, but here's a quick list of what we tried, along with age, alcohol percentage by volume (i.e., double it to get the proof number), suggested retail price, and some brief nose and tasting impressions:
- Highland Park Viking Honour 12yo, 43%, $55. This scored 96 out of 100 at the most recent Ultimate Spirits Challenge. Very consistent, tried and true. Fresh and slightly grassy nose, dry-ish like all the HP line but with a touch of sweetness, maybe some green tea in there. Full-bodied.
- Highland Park Viking Pride 18yo, 43%, $150. This has won back-to-back Chairman's Trophies at Ultimate Spirits Challenge and has been named Best Spirit in the World twice in Spirit Journal. Heathery floral honey, maybe a little toffee or cherries.
- Highland Park 21yo, 46%, $350. Aged in European oak and American oak casks, both seasoned with sherry. Pear, vanilla, tropical fruit. This was my favorite in the tasting until we got to whisky #5.
- Highland Park Viking Legend Valkyrie, no age statement, 45.9%, $80. This uses 50% peated malt instead of HP's usual 20%, making this the peatiest by far of the HP line. Not a smoke bomb, but it's there, and definitely peatier. A little oily with some citrus and some slight bitterness. Personal taste, but I'd probably skip this one.
- Highland Park 25yo, 46%, $750. Wow. Wow wow wow. (My notebook has stars and underlining on this one.) One of two spirits that unanimously got a perfect score from the Ultimate Spirits Challenge judges in 2013. Baking spices, dried tropical fruit (mango?), and sweet cream. At the end of the tasting, the guy sitting next to me at the tasting asked if I would reach over and grab the glass of this one from the empty place on my other side. I complied, but only if he'd agree to split it with me. Utterly delicious.
- Highland Park Twisted Tattoo 16yo, 46.7%, $100. Aged in casks seasoned with Rioja. Spikier and hotter than some of the others we've tasted to this point, but only slightly stronger in abv. Fruit, berries, tea, green tea.
- Highland Park Valknut, no age statement, 46.8%, $80. Aged in 100% American oak, sherry-seasoned casks. Nutty, sweet (bakery and candy-shop) nose, warming and darker on the palate with baking and candy-shop edges.
- Highland Park Full Volume 17yo, 47.2%, $100. Aged in 100% American oak ex-bourbon barrels. Vanilla, smoke, wood, maybe some lemongrass. Most HP is aged in sherry-seasoned casks and this feels like it's missing out a bit because it wasn't.
- Highland Park Fire Edition 15yo, 45.2%, $300. Aged in 100% ex-Port casks. Berries and red fruit, wood, very soft and buttery. A nice warming fuzzy hug. My second favorite of the tasting overall, and a bargain at less than half the price of the 25yo!
- Highland Park Ice Edition 17yo, 53.9%, $300. Aged in 100% ex-bourbon barrels. Nice, but obviously much higher alcohol than the previous expression, well before I knew the abv number. (I guess this might just be the same juice as the Full Volume but not proofed down to 47.2%?) This got the Chairman's Trophy at the 2016 Ultimate Spirits Challenge with 99 out of 100 possible points. Ginger, vanilla, some spices. Felt hot and spiky to me, but I liked it much better after adding just a drop or three of water.
- Highland Park The Light 17yo, 52.9%, $300. Aged in European oak ex-sherry casks. Really nice, and lighter in color than I'd have thought, given the age. Woody, fudgy, maple-like aromas but some stewed fruit to go in with the vanilla and oaky wood on the palate. As Paul said, "this one for me is just rub-it-all-over-your-body good."
- Highland Park The Dark 17yo, 52.9%, $300. Nicely floral nose with fruitcake, baking spices, toasty nuttiness on the palate.
We then finished up with a Rob Roy made with the HP 12, at Paul's preferred specs of 2 1/2 oz. whisky, 1/2 oz. Dolin sweet vermouth, and 2 dashes Regans' orange bitters. Delicious and went down a treat. I've never made a Rob Roy with single malt before, but this worked well!
So: what to make of tasting nearly three thousand dollars of whisky, assuming I'd bought a bottle of each of the above, for quite the mixed case? My top three:
- Highland Park 25yo;
- Highland Park Fire Edition 15yo; and
- Highland Park 21yo.
The only big conclusion that I can draw is that I really like the HP approach of using almost entirely sherry-seasoned casks, and didn't dig the few ex-bourbon-barrel-aged whiskies as much. (That Port though in the Fire edition...whew.) I like how floral the peat is, and how different the peatiness is from an Islay malt. (And that you're not sucking on charcoal like some other whiskies.)
Thanks once again to Highland Park and F. Paul Pacult for inviting me. This was an amazing tasting.