3. Highland Park 12yo 40%
The nose is very sweet to the floral perfumy side. The palate is more in the same line kicking in with maltiness. Highland park is the Coca Cola of Malt Whiskies. Everybody likes it and many can't live without it. It's a very accesable malt, sweet and delicate, with a hint of peat - Highland Park mix very peated malt from their own floor maltings with "imported" malt, to get a lightly peated malt.
The light peat and the use of a high proportion of sherry casks results in a flavour intense entry malt, that has a lot more to offer than most other 12yo standard distillery bottlings.
The more I nose this the more I notice how sweet this is compared to other malts. The peat hits me on the palate, with a lot of woody spices incoming and a long finish for a product of this kind. I did experience quite a lot of batch differences of HP 12 and this one is surely one of the nicer versions I have tried. It's part of a 3-set 20cl bottlings that I stumbled upon on my mothers whiskyshelf... :-)
In a nutshell I find this very sweet but balanced as well in the participating flavours, with a very nice high intensity that is not usually expected from a 40% 12yo OB. The finish is intriguing with a lot of prickly wood spices lingering on your palate
Rating 88/100
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