Highland Park 33 Years Old 1978 Vintage Collection 47.8% 1978

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Serge Valentin (80)

Colour: pale amber. Nose: age shows here, as it starts all on old humidor, various pieces of wooden furniture (old wardrobe) and camphor and eucalyptus. Goes on with more liquorice and honeydew, a little tobacco and then plums and old-style fortified wine (some kind of very sweet Muscat in this case). I’m not too sure, but there could also be a little rosewood, and then more and more mint liqueur (Get, Crème de Menthe…) I like this nose a lot but this style isn’t always good news wrt the palate, it could be overoaky. Let’s see… Mouth: yeah, the oak’s loud here, as feared. Starts right on a feeling of strong black tea and liquorice wood, with the spices in the front while they should rather be in the background in my opinion. Bags of cloves, cinnamon, caraway seeds, mint liqueur again, old walnuts… Well, you get the drift. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still very good whisky but you just have to like this style more than I do. Not an oak infusion but we aren’t far from that in my view. Finish: rather long but drying and quite bitter. Jaegermeister! Comments: the nose was quite superb but the palate was too oaky for this little taster. Still worth a pretty good mark in my book!

BOW (91)