Highland Park Twisted Tattoo 16 Year

Smells like wood. Tastes chocolatey and peppery. Gets sweeter with ice

It is very easy to get trapped by Highland Park's marketing. One of my favorite distilleries, with great looking bottles. This time a beautiful black decanter with a red snake (dragon-like creature), which represents Jormundgander, a mythological Snake, created by Loki the norse god of deception. It was said that the Snake was so big, it could cover the whole "Midgard" (our earth) with its tail, and even bite it. Finally, the snake was exiled by Thor, to a sea that surrounds the earth, till Ragnarok, the final battle, occurs. This amazing story just made me more demanding of a nice score for the actual whisky. Highland Park The Twisted Tattoo is a 16yo whisky matured in spanish Rioja Wine Casks. Pretty fancy stuff. Bottled at 46.7%abv, with a nice deep copper color. On the nose it is excelent. Starts with some red fruitiness, like strawberries, marmalade and aromatic peat. Salt, chocolate and a lot of Mint. It feels cold, like the whisky was kept on the fridge. Medicinal, ashy and naphtalene. After a first sip, it revealed a more maritime profile, like seaweed, pepper and vanilla. White chocolate. After a second sip it has become very salty on the nose. On the palate, starts again with red fruits, to turn into white chocolate for a few seconds and then a pepper bomb. It is very peppery, but it has a lot of wine influence, hence the red fruitiness. Mint, this note is the one that marks the rythm of this dram. Aftertaste is lovely, it is the best part of this whisky. It has a lot of tannins, but also salty and peppery. Ashes, cigarrettes, ginger and spanish ham. After a couple of sips, it went full medicinal, like keeping a tylenol on your palate for a few seconds. Lots of mint here again. Overall, this is a nice, a little bipolar dram. Good amount of flavors and fairly complex, bu somehow it feels the palate is just a transition from nose to aftertaste. I think it is good, and interesting, but not my favorite Highland Park. Still, it manages to get a 90 over 100 in my scorecard, so, i believe you should at least try it once in your lifetime. Sláinte!

Not a bad finish. The twisted tattoo might not be the most sophisticated Highland Park, but it does stay above their weird experiments.

If you’ve had a few bottles of HP12 and are looking to step up to the HP18 but don’t like the nearly $200 price tag, grab a bottle of this. In my area it’s around $95. All of the typical HP fruity, peaty, spicy notes you get on the 12, but with the ABV turned up to 46% it has that extra bite, a longer finish, and seems a little more complex on the palate. Handles water quite well if you want to turn down the tongue tingle, but it really drinks more like a 43ABV so doesn’t need it IMO.

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