ABV: 40 %
Origin: Islands
Type: Single malt
Bottles in collection: 0
Emptied bottles: 0
Impression: 3/5

Tasting notes
Nose: This is sweet and floral. At first there’s a sweet mix of honey, vanilla and heather coming through from the center and a very mild whiff of peat and tobacco slowly rising up towards the edges. It takes a few seconds for them to meet up to create a whole. When they do the floral notes are pushed forwards together with a fresh fruitiness. The sweet layer moves slightly backwards and gets a butterscotch note added within. There’s also a menthol layer hovering above everything else. This is a very nice nose and it’s shaped like a cone; With a wide sweet bottom and a fresh pointy top.

Mouth: It starts out with a thick layer with everything mixed in. There are notes of heather, assorted tropical fruits, tobacco, peat, honey and vanilla. There’s even a fresh saw dust oakiness and they’re all coming through at once. After a few seconds it starts to once again create the same cone as on the nose with the fruitiness and heather up front and the sweetness in the back. The tobacco and peat smoke is a bit heavier in taste than on the nose. The oakiness is floating around outside of the cone.

Finish: The menthol returns for a quick visit but it’s soon pierced by the fresh tropical fruitiness and the floral notes. The oakiness is still very fresh with plenty of wood spices and it’s creating a woody scenery in the background. There’s also a hint of ripe fruits somewhere in the middle but maybe it’s the tobacco notes and the peat creating an illusion. This is a very good whisky despite its low ABV. It’s a bit mild and a bit too oaky, but it never feels flat and/or over-oaked.

Additional information
The Highland Park 1998 was bottled in 2016 so it’s a 12 YO expression. It’s a travel retail exclusive which focuses on maturation in first fill ex-american bourbon barrels.