Highland Park Distillery, Scotland     founded: 1798 | active
For more detailed mapping of the distilleries in the area from our whisky map page, use this link.

We've written up enough reviews now to have seen a decent fluctuation in both flavour, consistency and esotericism, but I reckon this is the nicest-sounding group of smells we've come up with: Toasted / heather honey, fennel, fermenting pears and syrupy white wine grapes. Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, peardrops, gooseberries and 'sunny'. A touch ashy, and all joined together with bee-glue.

If I recall correctly, it was the hazy summer of 1996 when Brandy released her worldwide smash, Toffifee & Milo. Well, actually it wasn't, was it? But we did indeed get 'brandy' with those two tastes, so that'll have to do. We also said it was like, "sour wine grapes", which sounds like a sophisticated way of being a bad loser. Talking of which, it transpired that the Zimbabwean (aka Australian) way of saying 'tough luck/t*ts' is "Tough tackie!". So why not have a wee breakdown for Shelley Corner, including the afforemention toughness of ones tackies:

Shelley Corner:
- "I’ve given you one but I can’t remember it."
- "Shucks eh, tough tackie!"
- "This is better than taking a shit."
- "Fish must be extremely defoliated."

Right, back to it: blackberries and, woody and meadow-flowers conjure up a nice Autumn walk, whilst Spring grass conjures up a nice, well, grassy Spring. Sugary birch sap might go with one or both of the aforementioned, but I'm unaware of the seasonal production calendar of birch sap. It was also a touch peppery, with celery, aniseed, with a hint of wood polish and spiciness. Very moreish - as one said, "Num, num, num, num, num".

A long, woody finish, with mead, freshly cracked pepper, honey and vanilla. It was deemed to be a classic Highland Park and "pretty solid", performing very strongly for an 8yo whisky.

Following on from the North part of the night's theme, we sample a Linie Aqavit - a Norwegian liqueur/aperitif (41.5%) which has the distinction of being sent in the hold of a ship from Norway to Australia and back, crossing the equator twice. We thought it was very herby, with an aniseed aftertaste – a combination of quite horrible and being good for novelty.

~£55 (70cl)

WhiskyBase: Highland Park 2006 GM   |   https://www.whiskybase.com/whisky/71369/highl

We've always scored out of 10 in our group (see number in red box, below), with scores regularly given across that spectrum. The value out of 100 below is adjusted to the scale most commonly used for whisky reviews, to allow for better comparison.

86 / 100