Tag Archives: Island

Highland Park 14yo 2003 (52.9%, The Creative Whisky Company, The Exclusive Malts, Refill Hogshead #751, 235 bottles)

This Highland Park was a bit hard to review. The rule of thumb is usually, when reviewing a Whisky I have a full bottle off: open a bottle, let it breathe a bit, try it several times and when it’s about half full, (or half empty), review it, A review not only based on the tasting experience when analysing and writing, but also from memory of the first half of the bottle. Well, this bottle has now only 20% left in it and from memory alone, I would have a hard time writing something up, not because I killed off most of my brain cells, no, more because this is a very particular Whisky, one that seems to have an attitude, grumpy if you will. One that needs all your attention, and if not, sod it; “I’m not opening up to you drinker!” “I will keep most of my secrets to myself!” I have no clue how this Whisky really is, after an evening on my couch watching something or reading, thus giving less attention to the Whisky it requires. This was not an instant gratification Malt and I might have told you it is a disappointing Malt. Only when I took it with me to a friends house for a dedicated evening of a lot of great Whiskies and music, thus giving it the attention the Whisky itself feels it deserves, it finally did shine. What a moody piece of work! I could pick a fight with this Highland Park, telling it to behave or grow up or just… (pardon my French).

Color: Light gold (not pale).

Nose: Creamy toffee. Bourbon hogshead alright. Fatty and big. Quite aromatic. Fruity with some nice smoke to it, as well as slightly nutty (oak). Soft bonfire and waxy oak. Right out of the gate it smells quite complex, with a lot of creamy, toffee and caramel notes, but also a lot of ripe yellow fruit notes and on top if this, the smoky bit. A very clean smelling Highland Park, big and aromatic, so clean and in a way also modern. Sweet smelling. Very ripe and sweet white peach. Dried apricots. Pineapple syrup. After a while the soft oak comes forward, smelling almost as if the wood was painted white on the outside, because of the tiny chemical aroma this Whisky has. The small chemical bit smells thus of white paint but also whiffs of moped (warm oil, exhaust fumes) and polyester (probably from inside the saddle of the moped), otherwise clean oak (it still matured in a hogshead) and a wee bit of horseradish and unlit tobacco. All of this is so minutely present, that it only adds to the complexity without putting you off. See how strangely complex this one is? This must be why it does need your full attention. Do you also see what is happening here, I give the damn thing the attention it wants and it gives me all these complex and wonderful big aroma’s in return, however if I carelessly sip it away…nothing much! What a piece of work this is. This one seems to be alive and having a personality. There is just too much (happening) in the nose, and it is just too complex for casual sipping, and if you don’t understand its components, it will tell you off. I guess this is one of those Malts not for novices (yet again). I’ll get back to that later.

Taste: (Heathery) sweet, waxy, nutty and woody and pretty smoky on entry, fatty smoke with again some minor hints of plastics and/or polyester. Creamy fruit, mixed with some woody bitterness that not always pops up. In fact all the chemical bits mentioned above are here, yet not causing any problems. The entry is fantastic. It is not entirely similar to the nose, but seems to build on it, extending it. It is chewy and stays moderately sweet. With enough wood and smoke (and peat) to balance this out. Its certainly prickly on my tongue. White pepper? Apart from the heathery sweetness of the initial taste, this could have been a Talisker. Amazing complexity and a wonderful balance. Also some green notes, like dried out leaves and garden waste in autumn (dry, so the pre-rot phase, although close to it). Since I found the pre-rot here, I now also detect it on the nose. These green notes I mentioned earlier, also show up in the nose, after it showed up in the taste. That’s the workings of your oral cavity for you! Warming, The finish is long, complex and warming, and the aftertaste is an extension of the finish. Great balance! After a while the finish shows some bitterness from the wood paired with some licorice and the tiniest hint of some soapiness on the back of my tongue. The amount of bitterness seems different from day to day and is definitely saying something about the taster and not entirely about the Whisky.

A wonderful piece of work. Complex and of very high quality. Ranking very, very high on the interesting Whiskies list as well. Amazing how this Whisky manages to takes some off-notes (The bitter, the soap, the paint, the polyester and the moped for instance) and turns them around into something nice in the balancing-out-department. You as a consumer better be a skilled and an experienced taster, if not, this most definitely is not for you. It will sense that and will try to piss you off, making you think this is a mediocre and not so nice Whisky. It is not. It’s amazing. It really is. If anything, it might be slightly too sweet in the beginning and slightly too bitter at the end. If you try this on a couch or a reclining seat, you will miss the point. You need to try it sitting upright on a chair at the table, alert, without being distracted, giving it a lot of time, and then, if you’re “lucky” (actually luck has nothing to do with it), and the planets align as well, you will finally get it, like I just did. This one will not stop giving. It’s special stuff, ’nuff said…

Points: 90

Arran “Batch 3” (51.5%, That Boutique-y Whisky Company, 728 bottles, 50 cl)

As a volume, 50 cl should be just enough, or some would say, barely enough. I do the occasional bottleshare with friends, and half of a full bottle (35 cl), well that’s actually not enough for me, I believe that 50 cl is the bare minimum of acceptability. Earlier, way back in 2015, I actually reviewed Batch 4 of Arran from the same bottler. I have to admit, I totally forgot about that one. When backtracking a bit on my own website, I just found my review of Batch 4, which gave me quite the scare, since in this case the review for Batch 3 came first, an this introduction was the last bit to write. Both Batch 3 and Batch 4 have the same label, and for a moment there I though I’d written a review of the same Whisky again. Fortunately I didn’t, even though it would have been quite interesting to compare both reviews. That would have been a happy accident. Just to be clear, I would have posted this review anyway. Since I don’t remember Batch 4 any more, I can’t compare both to each other, which is quite unusual for me, since I usually do remember almost all Whiskies I’ve tried.

Color: White Wine, quite pale.

Nose: This has it all, tropical fruits, barley, bread, barley sugar, milk chocolate, hint of vanilla and very soft wood. Leafy. Lively. Fresh and also sweet smelling. Toffee and wine gums, and sometimes a bit like a Rum, but also a nice fresh golden Beer and Gin. What a remarkable combination of smells. Also a tiny flinty and smoky note, coming from, I guess, the toasted oak. It’s not very woody though, although over time, some more soft (virgin) oak moves in. Besides the big fruitiness, it is also somewhat perfumy and somewhat sweaty. Not soapy, mind you, it just smells so friendly and nice. Hints of fresh air, cow pasture and paper, only adding to the complexity. It may hardly have a colour, and yet it is a NAS bottling, but in no way does it smell like a young or under-matured Whisky. Amazing how much is going on in this one. No off-notes whatsoever. Wonderful smelling Malt.

Taste: Sweeter than expected and fruity. Vanilla, toffee and mango ice cream. Much simpler than the nose was. Fresh and lemony. Cold dishwater with lemon detergent and almonds. Wood shavings and sawdust. Fresh oak playing a larger role here than it did on the nose. I can feel the bitterness on the back of my tongue already. Very tasty and well balanced yet less complex. In a way this is a winter warmer. Despite all the fruit it isn’t a sunny Malt. Nice warmth when descending down the pipe. After the fruit moves away, the aftertaste also has this slight bitter lingering note, and present as well (finally it’s there, I’ve been expecting it for quite some time now) a slight soapy feel. The finish itself is medium at best, it doesn’t have a great length, and even the aftertaste leaves quite quickly, hinting at some youth. Still, what this Malt is able to offer, despite its supposed youth, it is amazing. If only the taste was as good as the nose was, than you’d be amazed what I would have scored this.

I didn’t buy Arran for a very long time, after a plethora of very young and initial releases, some of which already were very good. (Remember the Champagne finishes?) Not by choice or prejudice though, it just fell under the radar somehow. I bought this Arran at auction by chance. I wanted to buy a Boutique-y bottle, placed several lowish bids on some of them, and this was the only only one nobody seemed to care for and I was never overbid. So after a while is was Arran time on my lectern, and I opened this one, and it is great. Unexpected. NAS, very pale, so I didn’t expect all that much to be honest, yet this is a very good Arran. So after having tried this one, I immediately scored me some more Arran’s at auction. After this Arran, I’m not so sure 50 cl is acceptable to me any more. I fear this will be gone too soon.

Points: 87

Talisker 8yo (57.9%, OB, Special Release, Carribean Rum Cask Finish, 2020)

Talisker is no stranger on these pages, and this 8yo is already the fifteenth Talisker reviewed, and why not, I ask you. Talisker has a lot going for it. It is an excellent distillate, has some peat, although not as much as some others on the market, and has a distinct and maybe unique feature, it is often considered to be peppery. A lot of wonderful aroma’s can converge in a Talisker. Works well in both Bourbon and Sherry, and the core range 10yo is already a very good Whisky. One other distillery manages to tick all these boxes save one. The distillery’s name is Springbank and the box not ticked is the box for pepper, I did say it was an unique feature, didn’t I?

In 2018 the first 8yo was released in Diageo’s annual special releases series. That “first” 8yo, was a very good one, and I remember back then, (and this is not that long ago), the talk of the town were the plethora of NAS releases (in general). At the time, there were many Talisker NAS bottles released as well. This 8yo was so good, a lower number like 8 suddenly became acceptable again, and the public always seem to prefer an age statement, so better a low number than none at all. I guess this took Diageo a bit by surprise, who knows, because there wasn’t an 8yo released in 2019. In 2020 this Caribbean Rum version saw the light of day (rushed maybe?) and earlier this year, another 8yo was released, from the smokiest stock they could find. Looks like the 8yo is here to stay. We’ll see what next year brings.

Color: White Wine.

Nose: Initially milky and young. Tasted blind, I would have guessed this was a Lagavulin, since it has some similarities with the 8yo and the 10yo, similarities, which, I didn’t like by the way. I really, really like Lagavulin, never came ‘cross one that was sub par. So when coming across the 8yo and the 10yo, it felt a bit like a sell-out by Diageo, and I was overly disappointed, damn, I didn’t think they would stoop so low as to mess with the ‘vulin. But I digress, back to the Talisker at hand. Sweet tea leaves (wet), rain water and dead dry leaves on the street in autumn. It shows more (quite nice) wood spices when the initial milky component wears off a bit. Spicy, with mild sulfury organics, sweet mint and orange powder. Smells of a distant wood fire whilst walking on a snowy street at night (by yourself). This bit is great. When drinking this Whisky casually, I have a hard time to find any notes of Rum, both in the nose and in the taste. I do now, but for me they are more similar to a Rhum Agricole than the Caribbean Rum that is stated on the label, and by the way, Caribbean Rum, that isn’t really narrowing it down now doesn’t it? So Rum yes, but there isn’t a lot of it though. I feel all the alien notes this Talisker shows us, maybe aren’t even coming from the Rum casks at all, but they probably are. Diluted smoky toffee notes and hints of Brazilian Rum (Epris 15yo). At times sharp. The wood turns towards, toffee, coffee, mocha and pencil shavings. This will improve a lot with air, so give it time, but if you pour yourself another dram, the whole experience starts anew, including the wait for the nose to improve. Recognizable as a Talisker though. Apart from the wonky start the nose is all-right.

Taste: Starts with coarse alcohol, like Wodka, right from the start, not balanced. Paper and cardboard and some residual (barley) sweetness. Not much later the wood and all the lovely aroma’s from American oak kick in, as well as a peppery attack, yes, there it is. The aroma’s are there but the balance still struggles, like its missing a component. The wood also impaired a healthy amount of bitterness onto this Whisky, but since this Whisky also has a bit of sweetness, the bitterness is kept in check. The bitter notes take residence right on the very back of your tongue. Smoky and thus a peppery attack as well, so it’s still a Talisker after all. Fresh almonds, wood and latex paint. Come to think of it, this one isn’t really all that complex. The body of the work is good, the ending a bit less, so the finish shows the unbalance again, and the aftertaste does so as well, and shows us again the bitter notes this has.

First piece of advice. Pour this dram and put it away, let the air do its job first, because the first aroma’s that escape from your glass are too close to new make spirit. And after a long wait the whole experience is much better. The nose improves a lot and therefore the taste is helped along. In the end it is an interesting Talisker, no regrets opening it and it wasn’t a nasty chore to finish it as well (not empty just yet, but it will be soon). I won’t be opening a second bottle anytime soon though. Buy the 2018 version in stead, and well see about the 2021 edition in the (near) future.

Points: 85

Highland Park 10yo “Viking Scars” (40%, OB, Circa 2019)

Highland Park, never has there been a distillery whose output can really inspire me the one time and make me pretty sad and disappointed the next. Especially the official bottlings. Looking back at my reviews of official releases, I have to go back to 2015 to find a very good 18yo (bottled in 2012). Still the 18yo is wonky at best, since the 18yo (bottled in 2014) didn’t even come close to the 2012 expression. And this is the second time this happened to me with two earlier editions of the 18yo some ten years before. One batch, very good, the next not so much. I’m all for batch variation like Springbank does, but Springbanks seem to be always good yet can differ quite a bit. Every batch is made with different results in mind. With Highland Park you can see they were aiming for more or less the same profile, just the quality suffered a bit.

Don’t get me wrong, I really have a soft spot for Highland Park. Heck, this is already the 17th Highland Park on these pages! It was the first Malt I encountered that really connected with me, wow, how I looked up to it. For instance, have you ever tried the 18yo wide-neck version? Just sayin’. Maybe with a change of owners, a change of management, a change in views, came some sort of downfall of the core range for me. To be honest, I haven’t been looking at Highland Park for a while now, but luckily this bottle-share with Nico came up. Maybe I’ve set myself up for another disappointment, since this is a 10yo bottled at 40% ABV. I hope Highland Park is able to put out a decent entry level Malt.

Color: Light gold.

Nose: If I would say, heather and honey, would I still be believable? But yes, for me its that and this is thus most certainly a Highland Park. Smells good, floral (sometimes even borderline soapy) and has definitely some Sherry-notes as well as some warm barley aroma’s. Warm oak and do I detect a whiff of smoke right there in the back? Vanilla with some cask toast and milk chocolate. Cloves, birch sap and smells from the fire place at Christmas. Candied yellow fruits. Besides the perfumy and quite floral notes also some minty ones appear. American oak vanilla and a nice refreshing citrus note as well. Also some sweetish ripe green apple skins. If you sniff this well, it has a nice dirty note there in the back as well. Quite a lot going on for a modern Malt at 10 years of age, one that also has been reduced so much. The smokey, fire place note is very interesting in this one. The whole works well and the well-balanced nose surely doesn’t disappoint. Very nice!

Taste: Thin, somewhat watery, waxy and paper-like. Initially sweet and heather smoky and than an ever so slightly bitter note from wood. More birch than oak though. Sappy. I have to hurry to put another sip in before everything disappears. Oooh it does smell really nice though. So this is thin with a short sweet run and some wood. Heather yes, honey, nope, the sweetness is more of the refined sugar kind to me. Quality sugar water with alcohol. Warming. Sweet with thin runny caramel and sticky toffee and some nutty notes as well. Whilst dramming, keep smelling this, because it lifts the taste. After sipping, the smoky notes in the nose get bigger and more wonderful, the smoke creeps into the taste as well. However, I fear the overall taste suffers more than a bit from the reduction I guess. The nose is very good and there are more than a few hints in the taste of this Whisky that it should be quite good at a (much) higher ABV. Since it seems a bit syrupy sweet, it sometimes drinks like it is 30% ABV. Just when going down, you know there has to be some (but not even a lot) more alcohol here than you might think. Some woody bitterness, plantlike and again a bit cardboardy. The finish is obviously short. The aftertaste is comprised of a syrupy film, toffee, wax and heathery and this light bitter woody note. Hint of milk chocolate with a floral edge. Five seconds later all is gone and Viking Scars turn out to be only superficial cuts and probably will leave no lasting marks. Not bad though, I expected worse to be honest.

As I said in the intro, I had some kind of reason to lose interest in Highland Park and somehow built up some kind of prejudice. Well this bottling sure feeds this prejudice in a way, yet there are also some leads in the smell and taste offering hope. In its defence, this is not expensive, and good smelling, but must have been targeted at a more careless consumer, who might want to use it in a Whisky and Coke. Well, I obviously don’t fit that bill (I prefer a good Rum in my ginger beer by the way, thank you very much). This bottling is most definitely not targeted at the members of HPAS (Highland Park Appreciation Society), these members turn their attention to the many single cask bottlings bottled at cask strength. I’m sure though members of HPAS have tasted this bottling and have some at home as well. Not sure if they are drinking it on a regular basis though. I have to get me a sample or a bottle of one of those single cask expressions. I’m curious about those. If you are really into Single Malt Whisky, well, you might want to skip this one or at least don’t have too high expectations for it and the nose will certainly surprise you…

Points: 82

Yet another sample from Nico, who quite liked this and I do understand why. Thanks again mate!

Talisker 10yo (45.8%, OB, L5055CM000, 2015)

I don’t think this review will need a long introduction, since this Whisky will be compared to the 10yo bottled in 2019. It’s more than likely, but not necessarily true, that this review will have a longer than normal conclusion. So the previous review was about the Talisker 10yo bottled in 2019 and right now we’ll have a go at the same expression bottled in 2015. Rack ’em up and see how they compare!

Color: Gold, slightly darker than the 2019 version, and yes caramel colored.

Nose: Quite perfumy with only a hint of peat, softer than the 2019. Paper and cardboard notes. Quite fruity and friendly. Distant peach yoghurt, dried apricots and sinaspril. The balance in this one is reached sooner. Again, seems softer than the 2019, but both seem quite similar at first glance. Diageo will be pleased (for now). Companies hate batch variation in an offering like this, which relies on consistency. Definitely softer and carries a promise that is more sweet (cocktail cherries and vanilla) and with less toasty oak notes. Vanilla powder, pencil shavings and cardboard. It looks like the woody bits from the 2019 are here too, but they are more masked by the fruity bits. Just like “the other” version, this picks up more balance when left in your glass for a while. 5 minutes will do, as will do the warmth, the love, from your hand. Keep it moving, waltzing, swirling in your glass. Fruit emerge and even some farmy notes. The 2019 expression being less soft, seems to have more of a backbone (wood), but this 2015 seems more complete overall, it just offers a bit more.

Taste: Even sweeter on entry. Much fruitier, sweeter and again friendlier. Short sting of Talisker pepper. Less wood, less toast, less woody bitterness even. It is quite waxy though. Chewy peat and some chocolate chip cookies. This can stay in the glass longer than the 2019, which grows thin and a bit out of balance. I would say that in the details, the 2015 is a summer version and the 2019 is an autumn version of Talisker 10. This 2015 is definitely the tastier version of the two, it’s tastier and downright better, and the difference is quite easy to detect as well. Aiiii. Diageo won’t like that, Talisker 10yo should always taste the same. Bugger they say and I say bollocks. Nothing wrong with a wee bit of batch variation if you ask me. Just look at the output of Springbank, although they seem to serve a completely different group of clients. Who are you, when you want your Whisky to always taste the same?

Both offerings are quite soft, and although some might say they both smell pretty similar, the difference is right in front of your nose and easily spotted, which, I have to admit, is much easier when you have the opportunity to try both at the same time (just not in one glass). The 2015 is fruitier, the 2019 has more peat and wood. (Toasted) oak, sandal wood and pencil shavings. The fruit doesn’t play a big role in the 2019, it’s not about that at all. Maybe it is simply lacking in the 2019. Which nose I prefer best depends on the mood I’m in. Neither nose is better than the other. (When tasted in the morning, I preferred the 2015, in the evening I preferred the nose of the 2019. Taste-wise the difference, like the smell, is the same, woody as opposed to fruity, and yet it is here (in the taste) that the 2015 easily eclipses the 2019. 2015 shines (like a sun) and the 2019 is a true autumn Malt, with more wood, but also more gloomy, cloudy and grey (dull). Even the empty glasses, after a whole day, show the difference easily. The final test was Mrs. Quill, she hated the nose of the 2019 (you can imagine a particular facial expression now) and said the 2015 smelled a lot better, why? It smelled sweeter and fruitier. Only afterwards I explained both are Talisker 10yo, just bottled in different years, but she didn’t hear me, already lost interest… Was it so hard to even fake an “OK” or a “Wow”? Jeeez!

Points: 86

Thanks go out to Nico for the sample!

Talisker 10yo (45.8%, OB, L9275CM003, 2019)

When talking to a good buddy of mine, Nico, one day, Talisker 10yo came up as one of those malts that is always consistent in quality, always tasty, highly affordable and really widely available. Earlier I reviewed a bottling from around 2002, which was more than pretty decent. I even tried earlier bottlings, and they could be truly stellar. So with all these memories in mind, and the statement from Nico, I just left him sitting there where he was, and ordered a current 10yo. What I got the next day was this bottle from 2019. When freshly opened, I wasn’t all that enthusiastic to be honest. It also reminded me more than a bit of the 57 North I reviewed recently. I gave Nico a sample of the 2019 10yo and he found it again to be pretty decent. He seemed to like it more than I did. I got a Talisker 10yo, bottled in 2015 sample from him in return, so guess what will be the next review…

Color: Gold, but who cares, it’s colored. (Why? they used to color the glass, so get back to that, and leave the Whisky alone).

Nose: Light peat and slightly sharp. Sweet malt with diluted toffee notes. Hints of Calvados, cookie dough and dishwater. When smelled/snorted more vigorously, toasted oak comes forward (as well as a perfumy note). I keep smelling some apple, so Calvados it is then. The nose seems a bit off-balance at first, but this is corrected with some breathing, actually reaching a quite nice level of balance. Let it settle in your glass for a few minutes. More mocha and soft toasted wood add to the balance. With this, the apply notes are shoved right to the back. Sandal wood notes emerge next, this is all going in the right direction now! Brown sugar, toasted malt and the occasional whiff of cigarette smoke. This is rapidly becoming very nice indeed. After some longer breathing, the Calvados is gone, or maybe got overpowered or masked by the rest of the aroma’s. New is a distant whiff of fireworks and even later the perfume returns (we got this already, when sniffed vigorously in the beginning).

Taste: Sweet on entry. Smoky and cask toast. Light and waxy and a little bit of bitter on the side. Slightly milky and young, similar to the recent 57º North. Some paper and some wood, but not much. Less complex than the nose. After sipping, the nose turns slightly sharper. Coffee, ashes and slightly waxy. Sweet licorice. Nutty with quite some woody bitterness. The nose needs some breathing, but don’t let it stand around for too long. That would be a mistake. It gets a bit unbalanced again and also a bit thin. This is achieved by extensive breathing, so don’t overdo it.

Sure, this Talisker 10yo is pretty decent, but miles away from the 10yo from 2002, and there are quite a few more expressions of Talisker 10yo that can be called truly stellar. But times change, barley changes, the distillery changes, demand changes, everything changes. Take all of this into account and compare this to other Whiskies of this age and what you have here is still a pretty decent dram, for a very, very affordable price. Let’s say for the price of a lottery ticket. Do you feel lucky? If not and you need some comfort, get this, chances of winning are pretty slim anyway. Your choice.

Points: 84 (Nico scored it higher)

Talisker 20yo 1980/2001 (50%, Douglas Laing Old Malt Cask, “Tactical”, Finished in Sherry Wood, 504 bottles)

Earlier this year I had a leak in my house form a burst cold water pipe. Some demolition was done fixing the problem, so as of this past week and for three weeks in total, I live temporarily elsewhere, whilst several professionals fix up and better my place. My mate Erik offered me his house and I gladly accepted. Erik already sold his house but moved in with his girlfriend earlier than both expected, hopefully that will go well. If you think this is amazing, then let me tell you he also left me some open bottles as well, so I can review them here. And not your average run-of-the-mill, bang-for-your-buck Whiskies as well! 6.5 years ago I already did some kind of short job on another Tactical from the Old Malt Cask range and now, finally, I have a chance to review another one. Thanks mate!

Color: White Wine.

Nose: Slightly peated and sweet. Grassy and vegetal. Organic and slightly fruity acidity with every first sniff from my glass. Old scool. Slightly nutty, fresh and pungent. Hints of warm motor oil and definitely nothing like a modern Whisky or officially released Talisker I know of. If you move it around your glass for a bit, the sweetness emerges first, quickly to be taken over by a lot of the other aromas. Cooked red beets, and more of the sweetness, and some smoke again. Aromas released as by an indicator light. Sweetness on, sweetness off, sweetness on, sweetness off…More fireplace notes, with even whiffs of almost overheated plastic, and back to the green grassy notes again. Indicator light all right. Coffee, mocha, cardboard and hints of well aged Calvados. Dark chocolate bonfire. Sugar water, warm water from doing the dishes, peach and apple, for fruits. Yes, there is a lot happening here. Unique smell, very much the smell of Whisky from yesteryear. A smell to die for. Ticks boxes, awakens emotions. Great Scot(t) (and Bruce) almighty!

Taste: Starts a bit bitter, with charred wood, and again green and vegetal. Warming going down. Strong coffee notes with almonds. Smelling it after the first sip makes the smell even better. Second sip starts with the slightly bitter coffee notes with now some added fresh fruity acidity. A narrow band of green apple skins. The whole is not as big and complex as the nose promised. Next some more of the peaty notes. No heavy peat, but yes, the classic Talisker pepper attack is here people! Hello there! After the silky bitter notes finally some sweetness appears, to balance it out. Still this killer smell, wow! Sure, big on wood, peat, yes, but not as earthy nor as fatty as we’ve grown accustomed to from the usual suspects. Slight hint of warm plastic on the palate as well. Still a lot of coffee notes and dark chocolate stay on for the warming finish. The finish itself is pretty long, built around peat and wood. No big aftertaste though. 

The smell is stellar, old scool and well balanced. Amazing length, and the longer you let it breathe the better it gets, almost as if there are no limits to the development. The taste less so. Lacks a bit of complexity and evolution in my glass. Not overly bitter, but definitely bitter and wood driven. Could have been “bigger”, more complex. If only the fruity bits and some acidity could have made their way through, I believe it would do much better. Nevertheless, this is still a sort of classic Malt. From days long gone. I love it, its good and definitely an experience. 

Points: 87

Talisker “Port Ruighe” (45.8%, OB, 2017)

This is another recent “NAS” Talisker, released in 2013, right after “Storm“. The bottle reviewed here is a newer batch from 2017 (L7317CM015). Back in 2013 when all these NAS Taliskers arrived on the market, a lot of people feared for the classic 10yo to be discontinued or moved to a market different from ours (This happened to the JW Green label), but it didn’t happen. In 2015 the same exercise happened again with the release of “Sky”. We’re in 2018 now and there is still no sign of the 10yo being discontinued or even an “update” of the price. The 10yo is still going strong and usually is still well priced below all these NAS bottlings. And I believe it is also still better than all these new NAS-sers.

Port Ruighe was matured in refill casks (of both American and European oak). It was then transferred to deeply charred casks and yet again transferred to receive a finish from Port Wine (infused) casks. That seems like a lot of ado, to give this, probably young Talisker, its own aroma. Is it an experiment of sorts? Let’s see…

Color: Copper gold, but not the pinkish hue you tend to see with Port finishes.

Nose: Starts with peat. Nice fatty peat. Toned down obviously, since this is not a heavily peated Malt. I mention peat a lot right now, because since this is a NAS bottling, this could also have smelled “young” and it doesn’t. “Storm” had that, but this doesn’t. Thus, nice peat, a little bit of smoke and butter, so a bit of youth is there nevertheless. Since it is a Port finish, it could have smelled winey and sweet, but it doesn’t at first. It starts simply with peat. No storm, just a calm sea. Easy and quiet. The protection of a harbour, or port maybe? Could it be thát designed? Next some soft notes, reminiscent of a claret matured Jenever I have, (the acidity). Nope, still bobbing in the harbour with our soft peat. No dark storm, no storm even, just me and this peaty breeze. Hints of vanilla and honey emerge and some sort of sweet cloaking perfume, yup, we have our Port here. Turns sharper and a bit more warming as well. Hints of Malt and vanilla powder. This is spicy as well. Nice soft wood and the slightly burned cask. It may be NAS, but it shows complexity and I feel everything works well in the nose-department of this Malt. Still no really true Port notes, and maybe that is a good thing, since Ruby Port casks can easily overpower a Whisky. Wonderful nose, I kid you not.

Taste: Already sweet, creamy and quite fruity when it touches my lips. Peated Whisky with some smoke and a big fruity follow-up. Sweet, buttery, yet also young, and strange enough, right beside the sweetness, also a brief watery edge. Where the youth was absent from the nose, it is definitely here, but to a lesser extent than in “Storm”. It is also less complex than the nose. Bolder and more simple with a slight burnt-spicy edge to it. Increasing with air are the winey notes, but still well in check, although there is an overall sweetness and waxiness to it, that gets in the way of drinking more than one dram of this at a time. At the same time the complexity, that already wasn’t great to begin with, decreases. This is a shame because the Whisky takes a turn where you don’t want this to go. The road of NAS, simplicity, lack of complexity and the mismatch with the promising nose. The finish is medium at best, and to be honest, falls flat on its face. It disintegrates when hitting the ground. Aiii. Some peat, but very sweet and winey. Too much. It has been overpowered by the Port, which probably says a little about the quality of the Port, or the wood used, but maybe more about the age of the Whisky itself, because one might expect Talisker to be able to handle a little bit of Port now, don’t we?

It is nice to have had the opportunity of yet another take on Talisker, but this is one I’m not keen on repeating (buying another bottle, that is). “Neist Point” although more expensive in many markets, and too expensive in some, it is definitely a better experiment than this one imho. Neist Points was released right on the heels of “Storm” it is nevertheless different from Storm. This is way more mature. Is it older Whisky (guess not) or did the Port finish hide the “young-Malt experience”? Although criticized by many, I have no real beef with this pair of 2013 NAS-releases from Talisker, but I do understand a lot of the comments made.

So this is young Whisky, in the end overpowered by the Port, however, based on the nose alone, there was a lot of potential, maybe if the Whisky was aged longer and the Port and/or the casks it aged in was slightly better, this might have been a great Whisky, and we may see one like this in the future.

Points: 83

Highland Park Week – Day 4: Highland Park 1992/2006 (46%, Wilson & Morgan, Refill Sherry)

Yesterday we ventured into the realm of the independent bottler, well two actually. Today we’ll stay there but add only one independent bottler to our collection. This time we’ll have a look at a reasonably priced, (at least it was reasonably priced ten years ago, when this was bottled), and reduced Highland Park bottled by Italian outfit Wilson & Morgan. Yes, you’ll find a lot of people in Italy with names like that!

Yesterdays Highland Park was distilled in 1995, this particular one was distilled several years earlier. Do you see a trend? However, since this was bottled ten years prior to yesterdays 1995 offering, this one is definitely younger (as in it spent less time in wood). Here it is stated on the label that this came out of a Refill Sherry cask, so lets see if this one has more Sherry influence, compared to yesterdays Refill Hogshead.

Color: Gold.

Nose: Funky Sherry notes and actually a bit soapy. Much different from the previous Highland Park. Right from the start discrepant fruity acidic notes. Dusty and vegetal. Not very appealing actually. First impression is that something is not quite right. Warm, dull (nothing sticks out or shines) and somewhat simple. Not a lot of development. It’s almost like the Highland park distillate and this particular Sherry cask are no friends of each other. I’m wondering what kind of Sherry it was. Definitely unbalanced. Hints of caramel, toast and aspirin powder. Add to that a vibrant red fruity, synthetic, acidity. Unbelievable how dusty this is. No wood and some hidden sweetness. Syrup, sugar (the smell of it, not the sweetness). Hints of morning breath and Jenever. Powdered coffee creamer.

Taste: Wow, the dullness mentioned above is right op front the taste as well, as is (finally) some wood. Short hot burst and woody spices. Friendly hint of, again synthetic, lemon. Some sweetness in the background, toffee, coffee creamer and yet again an unbalanced middle part. Rural notes. Here the dullness translates into paper. Old newspaper (hold the ink). The red fruits mentioned above make up the rather short finish, with a unbalaced aftertaste. The cask did it’s part here. It did impair aromas you wouldn’t get from a Bourbon cask. However, just like was noticeable on the nose. The Highland Park distillate and the cask didn’t work together very well.

This one is long gone and you don’t even see them that much on auctions. Most older bottles of reduced Whisky, by Wilson & Morgan were very affordable, so I guess most were drunk when they were released. If you come across this one at auction or on a dusty shelf somewhere, well it’s not without reason it stayed on that shelf and when auctioned, I wouldn’t pay all that much for it. Its Whisky, it’s not bad and it doesn’t have big flaws. Definitely drinkable, but not a high flyer if you ask me. A bit unbalanced and very restrained or dull, but not boring, or maybe that as well…

Points: 80

Highland Park Week – Day 3: Highland Park 20yo 1995/2015 (50%, Gordon & MacPhail, Exclusive, for The Whisky Mercenary, Refill Hogshead #1485, 325 bottles)

Day three of Master Quills Highland Park Week and after two OB’s, its time to see what the IB’s are up to with Highland Park. Here we have a special one since it is one independent bottler, Gordon & MacPhail, bottling a Highland Park for another independent bottler, The Whisky Mercenary. This may very well be the best of three worlds, first Highland Park make a great distillate. Second I love how G&M work, where they try to have as much in their own hands as possible, The wood, the maturation, the selection and the bottling to mention but a few. Third, Mercenary Jurgen has a good nose, and is able to pick some nice stuff, and believe me it’s hard to get what you really want as an independent bottler. So here we have a 20yo Highland Park from a refill hogshead. When looking at the colour it seems to be at least a third refill remade hogshead from staves taken out of Bourbon barrels. Now forget what I said, because looks can often be deceiving and it is actually very dangerous to do so. My bad, and I hope you won’t make the same mistake like me.

Highland Park 20yo 1995/2015 (50%, Gordon & MacPhail, Exclusive, for The Whisky Mercenary, Refill Hogshead #1485, 325 bottles)Color: Light gold, almost White wine.

Nose: Right from the start, not even smelling from the glass, but whilst pouring, a nice creamy vanilla smell passes by. On top some Calvados. Quite some aromas that have to do with apples. Fatty red apple skin, but mostly warm apple sauce. In the background it has some more scarce notes of other distillates, other than Whisky. Can’t put my finger on it yet. Nutty chocolate paste with a trace of red fruit acidity. Warm soft wood with hints of semi-sweet yellow fruit and some dust. Underneath this has some smoke combined with soft woody spices and cold butter. American oak alright, and definitely not first fill or the next fill. So I guess my dangerous assumption plays out all right this time. So overall quite nice, good balance, but not very complex though. Adding to my feeling the cask may have been a bit tired already. I don’t think it was filled yet again.

Taste: The first note is that of wood. Soft wood. Next some sweetness. Honey, smoky toffee and caramel at first but the wood takes over again adding some dryness. Vegetal. Same as the nose. Good balance but not very complex. Tired cask again, even though the biggest influence seems to be that of wood. Medium finish and hardly any aftertaste. When its gone, its gone. No honey or wood stays behind. After some breathing and taking sips again, the Calvados notes emerge on the taste as well. The diluted toffee notes seem to grow not bigger, but wider, like butter candy with hints of lemon skin shavings or lemon curd, since that is sweeter. Also distinct notes of almonds. The smoky notes present themselves here as well now. So with extensive breathing there seems to be more (complexity) to this Whisky than I initially thought. See, how you have to be patient? Don’t fill up your glass too much, give it room for air, and be patient if you want to enjoy its full potential.

Connoisseurs, there is that dreadful word again, dislike tumblers or any other “wrong” glass. They are adamant about it. They don’t allow for flavour development, of which this Highland Park is an excellent example. This Highland Park needs a good glass. Personally I equally dislike it when one buys the “right” glass but then fill it up too much (and then post  a half full Glencairn glass on social media). This again doesn’t allow the Whisky to develop in the glass. You need a lot of room for air. Try it. Be patient, be smart!

The hint of smoke is actually very nice and makes it resemble Talisker and, to a lesser extent, Springbank a bit. So if I had to taste this blind I would have gone for Talisker, without the pepper though. Good distillate, reasonable cask and a nice profile. Needs some time, so don’t be hasty. Good Highland Park and just like the Leif Eriksson, again one without Sherry, and another thing becomes clear, 50% ABV > 40% ABV.

Points: 86