Highland Park 27 Years Old 1988 Wine Cask (53.3%, WM Cadenhead, Claret Finish, 234 Bottles, 2015)

• Category: Island single malt scotch whisky
• Origin: Highland Park Distillery
• Bottling: Wm Cadenhead’s Wine Cask
• ABV: 53.3%
• Cost: £130 from Cadenhead’s

What they say:

Distilled in 1988 and bottled July 2015 producing 234 bottles at 53.3% ABV.

What I say:

From Moxies’s Tasting with Moxie – a Festivus for the rest of us. Reportedly matured for 20 years in an ex-bourbon cask before being re-racked into an ex Claret Red wine cask for a further 7 years finish.

Colour:

Dark umbrous & ruby gold (17/20) slow medium-sized droplet tears with medium legs

Nose:

Brushfire smoke, equal parts floral and ashes like burning gorse or heather, heather honey, polished antique oak wood, coconut, vanilla, parma violets, peaches and cream, sweet peas

Taste:

Rich, oily, woody, maple syrup, molasses/demerara sugar, rounded and chewy on the palate, vanilla, herbal, toffee, treacle, butterscotch, heather honey, creamy condensed milk, bourbon cream biscuits

Finish:

Medium-long, spiced peat smoke and highland cream toffee

Overall:

Just beautiful, rich with a heavy bourbon influence showing through, this is stunning in its simplicity and gravity/weight of flavours it carries with all the while that heathery Highland Park smoke drifting down of the highlands.

Score: 93/100

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