Belgian whisky club Crann selected this Highland Park 1992 as their club bottling in 2018.
Remarkably it was already bottled back in 2005. Quick research shows that some bottles were taken out in September 2005 at the same strength for Mac Malt in Germany and the biggest part at 46% ABV in the High Spirits’ Collection. Strangely enough, these bottlings claim it was a sherry butt, and this label mentions a bourbon cask. Who is trying to fool us?
Highland Park 13 yo 1992
(62,9%, Brachadair for Crann 2005, cask #20355, 83 btl.)
Highland Park 13 yo 1992Nose: quite strong and a tad alcoholic, in a fruit eau-de-vie kind of way. Needs water, bringin out waxy notes, lemon peel and pears, with quite some grainy notes. Hints of almonds, and then a nice wave of honey and peach appears, as well as a smoky touch.
Mouth: a nice combination of sweet, peppery and mineral flavours, but way too spirity. Better with water. Fruit sweets, waxy notes again, with citrus zest. Aniseed, a little chalk. Not much sherry, I have to admit.
Finish: quite long, peppery
A natural Highland Park but I’m not totally convinced. It’s good but it needs some fiddling with water to make it enjoyable, in general I don’t like that. Even with water the recent unnamed Orkneys (same age) were wider and more to my liking.
Score: 82/100