Scotch Review #64: The Exclusive Regions Orkney Highland Park 9 Year

Cask No: CM 42

Distillery: Highland Park

Bottler: The Creative Whisky Co.

Region: Orkney Islands

ABV: 50%

Age: 9 Year

Price: $50

Color: 0.2, Pale Straw. Natural color and non-chill-filtered.

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Nose (according to the wife): A bit of a nature loving dram. There’s wild honey, wild flowers and some medicinal peat (smells like 한약/Korean Traditional Medicine she says).

Palate: Just like the nose suggests, the main notes are of wild honey, wild flowers, and medicinal peat. There’s some juicy dark fruit, I was thinking of a crushed figs/borderline fig jam.

Finish: Short. The floral notes really dry it out fast like a floral tea would.

Conclusion: Since all the snow has melted around here, I figured I should the last of my bottles-of-whisky-in-snow pictures up quickly. The last time I tried a Highland Park, I didn’t really care for it, but I hoped that would be a one off. I have to say, I enjoyed this a lot better than the standard Highland Park 12. It’s well balanced and the “wild” notes come through really well in multiple parts of the dram. The juicy crushed fig is pretty decent and doesn’t overpower anything else. I wish it was a little more complex, because it is pretty straightforward, but on the whole a decent whisky. Would I buy another bottle? Probably not.

Final Score: 74.

Scotch whisky review #64, Island review #10, Whisky Network Review #87

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Scoring Legend:

• 96-100: The perfect dram, nectar of the gods.
• 90-95: Near perfect, there is something truly special about this whisky.
• 85-89: Amazing, will always try to keep a bottle of this in my collection (if feasible).
• 80-84: Very Good, maybe only one minor nitpick about the whisky keeping it here.
• 75-79: Good, quite enjoyable to drink.
• 70-74: Solid, wouldn’t go out of my way to get it.
• 60-69: Meh, still drinkable.
• Below 59: If you have a bottle of this, start cooking with it instead.