Product description
Highland Park is one of the most interesting Scotch whiskies. The plant still produces malt, and its own malting house covers about 30% of demand.
Highland Park uses local peat, which is very different to that extracted on Islay and on the mainland. There are few trees on Orkney, so the main ingredients of the peat are mosses, ferns and heather, and these have a significant impact on the aroma and flavour palette of the whisky. The remaining 70% of the malt is supplied by Simpson Malthouse. It is free of smoke and peat and is always blended with its own malt before mashing. Highland Park 1986 is Duncan Taylor's Peerless range. The whisky comes from cask no. 3461 and was matured in Speyside, in the Duncan Taylor warehouse. The edition consisted of 158 bottles of cask strength whisky (41.8% abv) and was released on 30 September 2009.
Nose: rich and surprisingly fresh, honey, heather, vanilla, lots of oak, traces of tobacco and cedar, sugar-roasted almonds and a distant hint of peat smoke.
Palate: sweet and thick, vanilla cream, honey, bitter oranges, dried apricots, apples, bananas, milk fudge, a handful of garden herbs and a lot of oak.
Finish: quite long, with a strong oak note, oranges, honey and a mixture of dried herbs.