Last Night's Tipple

Many consumers believe that older is better when it comes to spirits. That's why you see those 40 year old Scotches selling for hundreds of dollars locked in glass display cases at liquor stores, and I would imagine that it's the reason that distilleries like Highland Park are expanding the range of bottlings to include older whiskies. In Highland Park's case, they've had a 12 year old and an 18 year old bottling for quite some time. The 15 year old bottling is relatively new, and I would imagine that one of the principal reasons that they introduced it was to appeal to consumers who think that older is better but don't want to spring for the 18 year old bottling. That's not to say that the 15 year old bottling isn't interesting in its own right or that the Highland Park people haven't striven to do different things with the 15 year old bottling from what they have done with the 12 year old (it does have a different aging program), just that I would be surprised if the driving force behind the introduction of the 15 year old bottling were not marketing concerns (namely, the need to get an older whisky out there to appeal to the "older is better" crowd).

Well, just as older is not necessarily better with wine, it's not necessarily better with spirits. The longer a spirit remains in barrel, the more it dries out and is dominated by the barrel's characteristics. Up to a certain point, that's desirable, but I generally would rather not suck on barrel staves when I drink a glass of whisky. To my palate, the 12 year old Highland Park is enjoyable than the 15 year old Highland Park -- richer, more complex, more interesting. I don't know whether the difference is due to the age of the whisky or the different aging program (12 year old uses more ex-Sherry butts than does the 15 year old), but I do like the 12 year old better. Which isn't to say that I don't enjoy the 15 year old very much or that I won't happily drink up the rest of the bottle.

Last Night's Tipple

Apropos of my last Last Night's Tipple post, Highland Park 12 year old can be had for £26.99 for a 700 ml bottle from Oddbins in the UK; I paid less than $32 for a 750 ml bottle from Spec's. Apropos of my Last Night's Tipple from two days ago, Highland Park decided to stop using spirit caramel in their 12 year old bottling (the only one that they had previously used caramel in) when they changed the packaging to the current retro-looking flask a year or two ago. I had had a bottle of Highland Park 12 with the old packaging (and consequently, with spirit caramel). I can't say that I noticed any difference between the way it was then and the way it is now, but that doesn't mean anything: we have previously established that my palate isn't the most sensitive in the world.

In any event, there's nothing for me to write about the aroma, flavor, or other characteristics of this whisky that I haven't already written. In my mind, it's the perfect combination of smoke, honey, and barley. If you don't like Highland Park 12, then you don't like Scotch. That's not to say that HP must necessarily be your favorite if you do like Scotch, just that anybody Scotch lover would find something to like in it. At less than $32 a fifth (which is something of an anomaly -- I've seen it for substantially more elsewhere), it's an outstanding bargain, as these things go.

Last Night's Tipple

Last night, I had another dram of Highland Park 12, followed by a small pour of Highland Park 15, just to make sure that my initial thoughts about the comparison between the two were accurate. As I wrote yesterday, the distillery was looking for a different profile from the 15 from what they had established with the 12 and accordingly included a larger proportion of ex-Bourbon barrels with the 15. Last night's experience confirms my impressions from Saturday night: I prefer the 12 year old expression, probably because it has more Sherry influences and more muted peat. That's not to say that the 15 year old isn't a very good whisky, just that the 12 year old is simply excellent.

Last Night's Tipple

Highland Park first released the 15 year old version of its single malt in Britain in 2003. It's not the same as the 12 year old version only with 3 years more age on it. Rather, Highland Park was trying for a slightly different style of whisky. According to Kevin Erskine of The Scotch Blog, where the 12 year old Highland Park is aged in 90% ex-Sherry casks and 10% ex-Bourbon barrels, the 15 year old is aged in a 50%-50% split between the two kinds of wood. The natural result is that the 12 year old (and the 18 year old, too; it has the same wood treatment as the 12 year old) is more sherry-influenced, with more dark raisin and nut aromas and flavors; while the 15 year old has more of the aromas and flavors that one associates with ex-Bourbon malts (vanilla, etc.). This different style has not been a rousing success with some critics. Consider, for example, some reviews from Whisky Magazine:

Martine Nouet: 7 1/4
Nose
Fresh saw. Pine resin. Nutty. Hazelnut milk chocolate. A mineral touch. Wet pebble.
Palate
Mild and round. Vanilla toffee, with a distinct bitter oakiness.
Finish
Medium, salty feel, nutty.
Comment
Oak is present all the way. A bit dull. Lacks vividness.

Dave Broom: 7 3/4
Nose
Light peat smoke gives a perfume to a sweet nose: tablet, demerara sugar, dried fruits (mango as well as grape). Water makes it more phenolic.
Palate
Hot with sweet treacle, black banana, raisin, firm oak and that delicate smoke. Very sweet and honeyed
Finish
Gentle, long. Good balance.
Comment
Balanced, as whiskies of this age should be but just too sweet for this palate.

Just to give you some context, these comments and the scores that accompany them are unusually bad, particularly for a big-name Scotch whisky. Whisky Magazine scores on a 0-10 scale, but a whiskey that tasted and smelled like gasoline would probably still get a 6.5 from most reviewers. To be honest, not all reviewers had a bad opinion of the whisky. Here's what Jim Murray had to say in The Malt Advocate:

90 A new expression due out in March, positioned between the 12 and 18 year old versions. A fresh and enormously drinkable whisky; very silky, with honeyed malt, delicate citrus and berry fruit, floral notes (heather and lavender), and a hint of cocoa and sea spray.

(This review was written in 2006, and I think that his "new expression" comment derives from the fact that the 15 year old was only released in the US last year. The Highland Park website makes clear that it was released in the UK in 2003.)

Well, I am perfectly willing to stipulate that my palate is dead and unperceptive, but I don't get much out of this whisky that the reviewers mention above. Citrus? Not so much. Salt? Nope. Black banana? I don't even know what that tastes like. I can say this: my impression is that it is smokier than the 12 year old version, which makes some sense. Despite the fact that it's three years older and that peat smokiness tends to decrease with age, it doesn't have the degree of sherry influences that the 12 year old does. Those sherry influences can mask peatiness. Anyway, I got some vanilla, but for someone who drinks Bourbon frequently, that vanilla seemed pretty weak. I also get some of the honeyed character that I like so much in the 12 year old version. I thought that this was very good, but I think that I like the 12 year old better. I'll try the 12 again tonight to make sure; but if I do, it's good news for my wallet.

Incidentally, the Highland Park website says that 20% of the malt for Highland Park comes from maltings at the distillery, while the remaining malt comes from Tamdhu (another Edrington distillery) and Simpsons (a commercial malter). The Highland Park malt is peated to around 40 parts per million phenols, while the Tamdhu/Simpsons malt is peated to between 1 and 2 parts per million. By my calculations, that means that the malt used to make Highland Park is around 9 parts per million phenols. That's enough to make it smoky, but it's still pretty mild compared to Bowmore at around 25 parts per million or Laphroaig at around 40 parts per million. Ben would probably therefore reject it as pathetic and watery stuff, which is too bad. It's really good.

Last Night's Tipple

Another dram of Highland Park 12. It's still really, really good. I got more smoke last night than previously, although it blew off after a while to reveal it at its honeyed, malty best. There is a fair amount of peat here, but it's a different kind of peat from, say, Laphroaig. Laphroaig isn't just smoky: it's also salty. I think that I compared it to alcoholic beef jerky. Highland Park doesn't have the brine, just the smoke.

Spec's in Houston has Highland Park at around $33 a fifth, which seems to make it the outlier nationally. The two big online liquor superstores (Sam's and Binny's, both of which have a physical presence in the Chicagoland area) have it at $43 a fifth, and they typically beat Spec's on price. I have no idea why Spec's price is so out of line (in a good way), but I plan to take advantage of it fully. I also plan to take full advantage of the wacky good price that Spec's has on the 15 year old version of Highland Park, which runs around $49 a fifth. This is supposedly is very different from either the 12 year old or the 18 year old: whereas those whiskies are predominantly aged in ex-sherry casks, the 15 year old is aged in a 50-50 split of ex-Bourbon barrels and ex-sherry casks, making for a lighter, more vanilla- and citrus-influenced spirit. Supposedly. Which is why I need to try it.

Last Night's Tipple

The Highland Park Distillery on the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland was founded in 1798 by Scottish preacher named Magnus Eunson. Since distilleries weren't legal under any circumstances in Scotland until the 1820s, he was also a bootlegger. Unlike many illegal distilleries, it managed the transition into a legally-licensed entity successfully, and the whisky that it produces has been well-regarded for over a century.

The 12 year-old bottling is Highland Park's entry-level offering, at least in the United States; but it is in no way ordinary. If someone who had never had any Scotch wanted to experience both its breadth and its essence, he should try HP 12. It's smoky, but not overpoweringly so like an Islay. It has the honeyed sweetness that one associates with the Highlands and the smoothness associated with Speyside. There's even a hint of brininess, which is a hallmark of island whiskies. If there is a better 12 year old Scotch, I don't know what it might be. If someone doesn't like Highland Park 12, chances are that he will not like any Scotch. It's fantastically good, and at around $32 a fifth in Houston, it's extremely reasonably-priced.

Incidentally, Highland Park has changed its packaging recently to what you see above. The bottle is now flask-shaped and the lettering is intended to evoke the late 19th Century. This is appropriate because the late 19th Century was the golden age of Scotch whisky. Many of the prominent distilleries of today were founded during the period, and the giants of Scotch blending like Johnnie Walker and Tommy Dewar (yes, they were actual people before they were international brands) turned what had been a regional spirit into the national drink of Great Britain and the spirit of choice of the entire British Empire (and assorted other locales around the world). The Scottish have been distilling for hundreds of years, but Scotch did not assume a form that would be recognizable to us today until the second half of the 19th Century.