SMWS 4.260, 1st fill Ex – Bourbon Hogsheads.
This bottling was blind tasted during the Blind Tasting Consortium blind tasting #9 (Cask away), on 20/3/21. To look up past tastings or follow future tastings check out #BlindDrams, using Tweetdeck is the best way.
Appearance
Straw/white wine in colour, small beads on the swirl line, thin to medium legs. I’m amending this to syrupy thick legs and swirl line. New glass, not as easy to see.
Nose
Well toasted bread, in spades, cereals and grains, banana, furniture polish, dunnage, forestry, pine needles off a Christmas tree, decent ABV too.
Palate
Nice mouthfeel, quite oily, and we’re into fruity spice and smoke, red berries, a little ash, tropical fruits, BBQ sauce again, it’s rather nicely integrated for me tbh, a nice balance. With time it gets darker for me, with a touch of cream soda, dark chocolate, aniseed, cardamom, dates. Again a lovely palate.
Finish
Quite long, quite spicy, Smokey, sweet, tropical fruits again initially, a tea note, ginger, cinnamon, aniseed, liquorice torpedo sweets, a nice drop tbh.
My thoughts
Another blind dram that i really enjoyed, and when it was revealed to be an independently bottled Highland Park i was very happy, mainly as it offers more in my opinion than the official distillery bottlings that iv’e tried, i find them to be ash heavy. There’s plenty of fruitiness and spiciness here, which really show off what Highland park can produce.
Would i buy a bottle?
Definitely, and if your a Highland park fan you should consider trying to get a sample, it’s very good indeed, and an eye opener to say the least.
Note – This whisky has been presented in it’s natural cask colour, non chill filtered and at natural cask strength.
Thanks to – @MaltMusings and @MckWhisky.
Image credit – @MckWhisky.
Cask away banner image courtesy of @jwbassman_
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