Highland Park offers a distillery exclusive but only if you shell out enough £££ for one of the premium tours and then you have to spend another £120 for the actual exclusive bottle.

In the last few months the distillery exclusive bottling was a 14 Year Old offering from a Refill Butt #3376 that yielded 582 bottles at 57.8%.

Highland Park 14 Year Old Cask #3376 (Distillery Exclusive) (57.8%)

Picture source: whiskybase.com

Nose: Dried dates and figs, cinnamon and some nutmeg, demerara sugar with a touch of brown sugar. After a few minutes there are some dried berries with gooseberries as the dominant variant. It’s very smooth (gasp!) and even perhaps a bit bland at first but it does get better with time and oxidization.

Palate: Boom! Spices, pepper and fizzy candies, gooseberries, brown sugar, dates and dried figs, sour berries, getting dry towards the end.

Finish: Medium length, lingering dates and gooseberry, baking spices and demerara sugar, gentle oak spices.

Thoughts: A somewhat disappointing nose is forgiven by a great Palate and Finish experience. It was a freshly opened bottle so good chances it even improves over time.