Review #91: Highland Park 17yrs 1995/2013, 53.9%, Edition Spirits, refill hogshead, 286 bottles

still looking for that single cask HP

The official bottlings can be so good, one might expect to find some spectacular casks. The parts seem to be much less than the sum of the whole -- and expensive -- but still it's worth looking for that one spectacular cask. Or at least something that shows the one true distillery character, behind all the blending and the sherry influence.

This is from Edition Spirits. Do they still exist, or were they folded into one of the Laings? Doesn't really matter.

nose: subtle, but very nice. lots of cooked apples and earthy smoke (if that made sense), then some peaches and plums, marshmallows, oats with yogurt, mown grass, something slightly medicinal (camphor), and something slightly floral (lily). all good things, but curiously lean.

palate: not as smoky as I expected. slightly oily texture, it's creamy fruit with a smoky burn. I'd swear there's a little rubbery sulfur in there, too, but where did it come from? is that just the peat asserting itself?

the finish finishes unmemorably.


Nice whisky, starting to develop some interesting flavors, probably could have spent more time in cask. The peat was distinctly present but slightly boring. I like it, but I'm still looking for that great cask of HP.

score: 85

review #2: Bladnoch 1990/2011, Edition Spirits, 58.3%, cask #ES 005/01

I think this is pre-Armstrong and pre-Hunter Laing indy Bladnoch ...

Why did they ever close it? And in the 90's, too -- wasn't the whisky crisis over by then? Did the place come with two or three stills? With whisky in the warehouse?

Nose: very sweet, perfumed apples as soon as I open it -- not like the newmakey apple, or the generic Glenfiddich green apples -- more like a winey heirloom apple, or something Snow White would bite into (without the poison). Then cherries and other orchard fruit, maybe some berries and macarons, and a rich graininess. It settles into a sharp grassiness with a bit of engine oil.

Palate: strangely like the nose but backwards. it starts off sharp, grassy, peppery, and ends up on rich, sweet orchard fruit. pretty powerful at this strength (duh).

Long, peppery, oily (motor and cooking) finish.

For me the best part was the nose, however: the rich red fruit was powerful but balanced by the grain and grass. It did hold up on the palate, too.

score: 86