Highland Park Cask Strength Release No. 1

One of the spicier whiskies I’ve tasted. Needed quite a bit of water to mellow out the alcohol due to the cask strength. Did enjoy it though

Bit rough, but very rich and warming

N: Dried earth, musty dried pears, dried apple. Fresh herb garden, anonymous floral notes, white tea with honey. Graham cracker, sweet peat smoke, and a little more than a dash of ethanol. P: Rich and spicy right off the bat. Toffee, black tea, coffee. Earth and pine, stone fruit, a vegetal peat. Mid palate is slightly bitter and herbal with a dash of green tea or even matcha, honey again, and dry sesame seed crackers. A few sips in you notice how oily it is - super heavy and slick on the tongue. That coating is also very spicy - definitely a chili pepper type of spice that's more than jalapeno, less than habanero, somewhere in between. Caramel builds in even later than that and carries into the finish. Other than the caramel, the finish is mostly vegetal peat, some smoke, and lots and lots of heat - one of the hottest finishes I've experienced. As that heat finally tapers, some dusty wood notes emerge along with a good tannic pucker that forms in the cheeks. This is kind of oddly both great and slightly disappointing. It's a fine dram in its own right, but it lacks some of the depth and complexity you get from the 12 year. I had hoped this would be a step up from that, but it's really trading finesse and complexity for power and heat. I think it suffers a bit because it's an NAS bottle - you have to assume there's some relatively young make in there; young enough that they don't want to put an age statement on it. I don't know, I'm just guessing - one of the more knowledgeable drinkers on this site probably does know. Long story short, I like this, but I think I just might love a cask strength 12 year HP. Maybe that's an evolution of this line down the road. I hope so. (As a side note, I would expect future batches of this to be better as HP dials in the blend for the marketplace. I'd certainly pick up future batches, but probably wouldn't look too hard for them either.)

Man this is a potent whiskey. Bottled at 63.9% ABV, this selection oddly tastes hotter than some slightly higher proof offerings I've tried from Highland Park. ( Westray, for example is bottled at 65.1% ABV ) The front of the taste is very sweet. Its hard to tell that this was aged in sherry seasoned casks because I don't taste the powerful influence of berries or red fruits like I normally would in a sherry cask whiskey. At this proof, the whiskey creates an interesting tingling sensation on my tongue. Not unpleasant but unexpected indeed. Toward mid mouth and all the way through, the sweetness gives way to a sensational hit of peat smoke. This whiskey finishes hot, with a stinging bite and high proof warmth. I get that cask strength selections are intended to be sampled with varying amounts of water drops. However, much to my downfall I cannot bring myself to introduce water or ice to any whiskey in the Highland Park catalogue. Still, for such a high proof offering; this whiskey still sings with the complexity I did not expect to find at this ABV. Even though this might be one of my least favorite Highland Park offerings, it is still significantly better than a lot of competing cask strength whiskies in this price point.

Light smoke. Dark dried fruits such as plums or raisins. Honey sweetness.

Still don’t like peated scotch. Being cask strength does not change that lol.

Butterscotch and smoke on the nose. Sweet butterscotch taste, orange oil, a long peppery finish with a touch of smoke. Adding water, get a bit of marzipan and tames some of the pepper on the finish