Tasting note by Best of Wines

Honey Liquorice

One of the running gags at Highland Park distillery is their cabin in the woods. Whenever people visit the distillery and ask where they might be able to purchase some casks, the staff always directs them to the other side of the Island and tells them to look for a group of trees. There they'll find a shed where they can acquire casks of Highland Park. On Orkney, however, there are no trees. Highland Park also doesn't like it when independents use their name on the bottle and never gives them the right to do this. This is why these whiskies are labelled as "Secret Orkney". Since next to Highland Park only Scapa produces whisky on Orkney, and the name Scapa can be put on any bottle of Whisky, we can know for certain that this is indeed Highland Park.

COLOUR
Pale gold like white wine
NOSE
Fresh nose with lemon, melon, pears and apples. Loads of white fruits, white flowers, chamomile tea and even a hint of honey. After a while the nose gets more vanilla and toffee notes with some hints of tropical fruits like banana and mangoes. Somewhere in the background there is a flint of smokiness, but it is mainly dominated by the white fruits and vanilla.
PALATE
The flavour offers much more spices and savoury notes with more smoke on the palate. Once again beautiful fruitiness with caramelized pears, some hints of honey and chamomile tea. In addition there is some liquorice, and not the black Dutch candy, but the sweet sticks of wood. It all comes together in a nice warm blend of spices, fruits and caramels with a slight touch of orange peels.
FINISH
The finish lingers on for over a minute, slowly developing to more hints of oranges but it keeps on offering chamomile tea and honey. The finish offers more of the liquorice due to the smokiness really coming through here and really going well with the taste of honey.

CONCLUSION
This is textbook Highland Park. When people ask what you can expect with a Highland Park and you reply to expect honey, flowery herbs and a smokiness that will drive itself forward in the finish, you will be correct in about 90% of the whiskies. What I really adored about this 15 year old expression was the hint of liquorice combined with the chamomile tea and honey. Especially in the finish, it almost feels like you've just eaten a bag of honey liquorice... though I think only the Dutch would understand what I'm talking about here. Great Highland Park and lovely balanced whisky!