Best Scotch Whisky of 2011

Santa is coming soon.  What will he bring you?  Santa, if you are reading this, please take note.

Over the past year, I reviewed a number of blends and single malts.  Who were the stunners that would make excellent gifts to good boys and girls the world over?

GlenDronach 15 year old Revival ($75)
This is a sherried dram.  Bursting forth with lots of frothy red fruit, blackberry, orient spices and tobacco.  Powerful, leaving a long taste of smoke and plums.  Highly recommended for the boys and girls who like sherried whisky.

Te Bheag Connoisseur's Blended Scotch ($35)
This is not a well known blended scotch.  Very hard to find in the US, but available in Canada and the UK.

Probably the best blended scotch whisky discovery in my opinion of the past year was Te Bheag (pronounced che vek).  It's reasonably priced and delivers great flavors of tobacco, peat and sherry, woven well, with no bitterness, bite or alcohol peeking through.  I was amazed by this blend and frankly I think it disappeared off my shelf in about two weeks!

Black Bottle Blended Scotch Whisky ($20)
Another blend makes Santa's list this year:  Black Bottle Blended Scotch Whisky.  Incredibly affordable at around $20, but damn impressive if you like peat and smoke from Islay to tickle your taste buds.  Sweet peat, gentle fire smoke of damp spruce tree branches by the beach on an overcast day.  Wow!

Highland Park 15 years ($72)
Highland Park 15 years was a discovery of mine in 2010, but I revisited it (click here) again in 2011.  Simply an expensive and brilliant shining diamond of a single malt.  This malt brings together what is magical about whisky in one bottle.  You have peat and heather, honey and toffee complimented by smoke.

Johnnie Walker Green Label ($50)
Sometimes Santa needs to give a gift that he is sure is a well recognized crowd pleaser that gives a taste of all the regions of Scotland.  Johnnie Walker Green is soft honey, drizzled over toast with lemon zest, sea spray and a hint of peat that always makes those good girls and boys happy on Christmas day!

Hopefully, we have all been nice and not naughty, so that ol' St. Nick will bring us something we can enjoy over the holidays!


Jason Debly

Scotch Whisky Appreciation is Empiricism Tempered by Subjectivism

Prague Castle and Straka Academy at night from Cech Bridge, Prague 

I received a visitor from the Czech Republic.  Well, he did not actually visit me, but rather this blog, which is kinda like an extension of my home.  If you like whisky, I welcome you into my online abode.  In any event, my Czech visitor wrote the following email:

Hi Jason,


I just want to give you my big thanks for how you unflaggingly keep your blog alive which is immensely inspiring for a whisky newbie like me. I  tripped over your blog when searching for a good whisky I could present my friend with on the occasion of his 30`s birthdays few months ago and based on your reviews I chose Highland Park 15. Another friend of mine, also now in his 30`s, was gifted Macallan 12 cherry oak and, luckily, Hibiki 17 and so we decided to conduct our very first collective tasting. To make it even more interesting I had listened to you and contributed to this event by buying a bottle of Cragganmore 12 and, just for comparison, I also brought a recently opened bottle of Tullamore Dew 12. The order was following:

 1. Tullamore
 2. Cragganmore
 3. Macallan 12
 4. Highland Park 15
 5. Hibiki 17


 I have to say that until this tasting I was a 60% bourbon drinker and 40 % Irish whisky drinker, all I have  tasted so far from scotch was Johnnie Walker Red and Black several years ago, so I was honestly a little afraid if I could appreciate this excellent, but to me quite unknown stuff. I felt kinda like cast pearls before swine, meant me :) To my relief I can say, that there wasnt any whisky I didnt like.


 Started with Tullamore we agreed that it was a nice stuff, maybe still a little harsh but overall easy drinking. We were still musing about Tullamore while I was pouring us the Cragganmore and when we raised our glasses to our noses it caught us utterly unprepared to what arrived. The nose was, compared to Tullamore, so rich, complex and pleasantly overwhelming (it felt like smelling a jug of honey to me) that we just unbelievingly stared at each other and I was silently  praising you for having reccomended this whisky as a good choice  for newbies. Tullamore was immediately forgotten because we were kicked several stores above. And the finish was so long, the taste of oak went on and on and on, great! With anticipation we proceeded to Macallan.  I was personally anticipated quite a lot from this whisky but honestly it didnt WOW me. Do not take me wrong, it was a good experience, the nose and the palate were in my humble opinion very nice, smooth and all the tastes well refined together, but then, right after swallowing it, it was gone. Nothing. Compared to Cragganmore, Macallan did quite poorly speaking about the finish. The another day, when we gave Macallan another chance, the finish improved a bit (maybe because the air inside the bottle did some work?), but still, quite short. 


Anyway, the next one was the Highland Park and I remembered your post about being in the presence of greatness :) Well, I have to admit that I could detect the quality hidden inside the bottle, the nose, the palate and the finish didnt dissapointed me a bit, but I just wasnt able to recognize so much flavors and scents out of it like for example from the Cragganmore.  Highland Park left me with a feeling that there are plenty of flavors, very well refined and mixed together, but due to my inexperience out of my reach its still a very long distance I have to make on my whisky-knowledge path before I will be able to detect them all. Anyway, an excellent whisky and I am looking forward to my next encounter with it! The last, but definitely not the least was Hibiki. The nose was absolutely fantastic! I couldnt help myself but I could mainly detect some punch-like cherry tones, strong yet smooth, something I definitely didnt expect to scent from any whisky. The taste was also very pleasing, no unpleasant notes there, blenders masterpiece I would say. The finish was very satisfying and we couldn agree if it was longer than in Cragganmore case or not. After various tastings here are the winners:


 1. Hibiki
 2. Highland Park
 3. Cragganmore (I still wonder if I didnt like it even more than Highland
 Park, but as I said, there is that definite quality hidden in HP I cannot deny
 4. Macallan
 5. Tullamore


 To conclude, this was a wonderful experience for all of us, like when you open a hidden door and find another world behind that you never new about before - the world of single malts (forgive me Hibiki) and since then we are all on the quest of discovering and relishing all the good things which whisky producers have prepared for us :)


Jason, thank you very much again because as my favorite blogger you have contributed greatly to this new hobby of mine and I will definitely stay faithful to your blog and will be looking forward to the post that you place there in the future!

Keep writing!
It is worth reading ;)


Best regards,
David


. . .

I am very flattered to have received that email!  Sure, it is always nice to hear someone likes what I am writing, but the real reason I post the email from David is to argue that whisky appreciation is not simply a matter of beauty in the eye of the beholder.  Moreover, I wish to challenge the generally held belief of most people that one's likes or dislikes of a given whisky are purely subjective and have no empirical/objective basis.

Absolute Truths
I believe that there are some absolute truths in this world of ours:

(1)  it is always wrong to torture children;

(2) never drink wine from a paper cup; and

(3) knowledge of good and inferior whiskies is obtained via sensory perception.

And guess what?  David's email is support of that final immutable proposition.

If you gave me the very same line-up of whiskies that he and his friends tasted and evaluated, I too, would have ranked them in the very same order.  So would most of my friends.  That's not a coincidence.  But, let's say someone would rank Hibiki second to say Highland Park 15, I could accept that and still believe my argument holds water that there are objective criteria distinguishing great from not-so-great whiskies.

The Myth of Subjectivism
If the beauty of whisky was truly in the eye of the beholder, then it would be true and self-evident to all that Ballantine's Finest or Bell's Blended Scotch is just as good a scotch whisky as say Royal Salute 21 years or Johnnie Walker Blue Label.  No one seriously believes that, nor does the fundamental economics law of supply and demand support such a view.

Why?  The two cheap blends are grainy while the latter two are not.  The two bottom-shelf residents are terribly sweet with no relief or flavor development.  The reasons are endless.  In other words, the high-end whiskies provide a much more pleasant tasting experience.  So, it is a myth to say that the merits of a whisky are solely in the eye of the beholder.  With so many examples of great versus terrible whisky comparisons that we can all agree on, it can't be true that it's all just in the 'eye of the beholder.'

The Reality of Subjectivism
Having said the above, let's not dismiss entirely what we, ourselves, bring to the tasting experience.  We bring our own opinions, some held critically, while others dogmatically (i.e. Islay peat bombs are simply superior to Speyside honeyed malts).  A peat and smoke freak will invariably rank Laphroaig 18 higher than say Hibiki 17.  They are two very different whiskies.  So are Hibiki 17 and Highland Park 15 years.  A person who derives more delight in robust toffee and heather flavors will rank the Highland Park higher than the Hibiki.  Is this wrong?  I would say 'no.'  Am I contradicting myself?  No.

You might be thinking:

"Jason, you can't have it both ways.  Whisky appreciation cannot on one hand be based on objective criteria that we can all agree on, and on the other, be based in part on our subjective thoughts and feelings."

. . .

And, that my friend is exactly what I am saying.  Appreciation of great whisky is a two-step approach.  First, objective and then subjective.  

Hibiki 17 versus Highland Park 15 yrs
These are both fantastic whiskies.  Which is better?  It's kinda like saying my Mercedes S-Classs sedan is better than your BMW 7 Series sedan (by the way, I own neither).  One vehicle is not better than the other, just different.  One vehicle might accelerate half a second quicker, but the slower luxury sedan has a quieter engine.   They are both majestic automobiles.

At the same time, we can easily agree that the Mercedes S-Class is superior to the Hyundai Accent.  We have objective, sensory based data that we can measure.  The Mercedes drives quieter, has more horse power, all-wheel-drive versus front wheel drive, softer leather, greater aesthetics (ie. wood grain dash versus plastic).  Like the Ballantine's Finest versus Royal Salute comparison, the list of reasons goes on endlessly too.

However, when we compare the Mercedes S-class to a BMW 7-series, it is no longer readily apparent that one vehicle is better than the other.  Both have beautiful leather seating, quiet ride, immaculate handling, etc.  The vehicle you rank higher will now depend on your second phase of analysis that involves your own personal preferences, like an affection for sports car performance (BMW) or placing a premium on a serene driving experience like floating on a cloud (Mercedes).  Whichever one you end up ranking as the best is just as valid as my own opposing view.  

The Hybrid Approach
Similarly, in the appreciation of whisky, there is an objective basis for declaring some whiskies are great (Royal Salute 21) and others not (Bell's).  But, between two great whiskies, the competition becomes based upon the likes or dislikes of the individual.  Between two great whiskies, the beauty in the eye of the beholder view has merit.  Accordingly, we need to recognize that we practice a two-phase or hybrid approach to whisky appreciation.  First, there is an initial objective review followed by a secondary subjective review.

Conclusion
What can we take away from this discussion?

I think it is fair to declare some whiskies are not as good as others.  We can make that determination about other consumer goods, why not whisky?  Of course, once a whisky meets a certain benchmark of excellence of craft, the decision of whether or not one is better than the other is not verifiable, except by reference to your own likes and dislikes.  Hence, I can declare with authority that poor old Bell's or Ballantine's Finest cannot hold a candle to a great many other scotch whiskies, but not authoritatively state Royal Salute is better than Johnnie Walker Blue, without relying heavily on my individual likes and dislikes.  Difficulties arise when we try to decide which whiskies among the great are better.  This is because we have a differing sense of where the 'certain benchmark of excellence' a whisky must obtain is located.

For me, a whisky can be great where it exhibits the following:

• smooth but interesting;
• no raw alcohol taste;
• no nasty bite or bitterness;
• there has to be an evolution of the flavor profile;  It has to go somewhere.  It can't be just smooth and sweet.  The whisky needs to transition from sweet to big sherry or big peat or slight sherry, slight lemon or whatever.  It can start sweet but become drying by the time of the finish.  
• There needs to be some texture, tapestry of flavor woven in with that smooth overall character;
• Finally, a great whisky needs to be 'complex';  The meaning of this term is most elusive, but I will try anyway:  an intricacy of flavor that is original, attractive, and takes time to understand. 

How's that for a stab?

And for the record, the Hibiki 17 years is superior to Highland Park 15, but only by the slimmest of margins!

Cheers!



Jason Debly

Copyright © Jason Debly, 2009-2011. All rights reserved. Any and all use is prohibited without permission except for the photograph of Prague and various automobiles.  The photograph is used with permission of the photographer, Vlastula.  He retains all copyright and license to this photo.  Please click on his name for a link to Flickr where you can enjoy more of his great photography.  Photographs of Hyundai and Mercedes were taken by Wikipedia user IFCAR.  All rights to these images have been released into the public domain.  Photograph of BMW 7 Series was by Wikipedia user Mariordo who has granted a license for its image to be used here.

Musing about Highland Park 15yrs

I and the wife invited over a friend of mine and his fair wife for drinks.  She drank Italian soda, while I pushed on her hubby, Mount Gay rum & coke, followed by Power's Gold and finally Highland Park 15 years.  She watched with some consternation as I delivered my praise for Highland Park 15 with reverence that most people only see on Sunday mornings at their place of worship.  In my case, my place of worship is wherever a bottle of HP 15 happens to be.  As my sermon proceeded, my friend's wife seemed to grow more worried . . .

"Mike!  We are in the presence of greatness!"

or how about:

"God has smiled upon our glasses!"

or

"I declare jihad on bad whisky!"

With that last comment, our respective wives gave stares that cooled us down, in spite of the balmy weather. 

Highland Park is a distillery that is incapable of producing a disappointing dram.  HP15 is no exception.  And!  HP15 really is the summer dram of the Highland Park line-up.  It is lighter than the 12 and 18 years old, less popular, but great.  Highland Park can't make a bad scotch.  HP 15 is simply a magnificent single malt.  It screams quality and refinement.  It tastes of the signature 'heather' that is unique to the distillery.  I always marvel at the quality of this dram.  Not for casual drinking as it is quite expensive and simply too elegant for barbecues and ball games.  Save this for very good friends and special occasions!

A detailed tasting note of Highland Park 15yrs, which I wrote last year is available by clicking here.  Too tired to read a lengthy tasting note?  That's ok too.  How about the following one sentence tasting note I have just composed?

"Butterscotch, honey with a nice zing of spice.  Put simply this is a Coffee Crisp bar, enveloped in fine cigar smoke, in your glass!"

The hang time of these flavors is huge!  A finish that goes on forever.  Ok, ok, I tricked you.  This tasting note is more than a sentence. 

Cheers!


Jason Debly

Review: Highland Park 15 year old Single Malt Scotch Whisky

Lately, I have been encountering a number of disappointing blended and single malt scotches.  The suspects:  Glenkinchie 12, Auchentoshan 12, Dewar's 12 and Whyte & Mackay.  In addition to being disappointing, they were a waste of money.  I gave away most of the bottles to friends who aren't that picky about what they drink.  I guess that's one of the hazards of operating a whisky blog.  You can waste good money on poor whisky or scotch.  With this review, I needed a scotch that would remind me of the romance between drinker and scotch that can take place when great spirits are involved.  So, I picked up a bottle of Highland Park 15 years.  I am familiar with Highland Park 12 and 18 years and was confident that the 15 would be a delight also.  I had tried it at a scotch tasting that featured a range of Highland Park bottlings.

Nose (undiluted)
Vanilla, rich peat, slight heather, sherry, lawn grass clippings, damp leaves. The aromas convey a clear message: A rich, luxuriant treat awaits!

Palate (undiluted)
Starts sweet. I can taste the sherry flavors imparted as a result of the time this spirit spent in sherry casks. It must have been good sherry in those casks because I do not taste the spoiled sherry flavors that I encounter in cheap blends like Whyte & Mackay or Dewar’s 12 years. This is choice/top shelf single malt scotch.

Besides the sherry, I am detecting spiced honey that would make Winnie the Pooh swoon with delight. Velvety smooth, yet with texture and an aromatic flavor profile that goes on and on and on like the Energizer Bunny. There is also a citrus component to the flavor profile that appears on the finish. Mid-palate is very aromatic.

Finish (undiluted)
Some fresh navel oranges and smoked salmon dry on the palate. Ohh! This is good! These smokey flavors last a long time, like an echo at the Grand Canyon.

Add Water?
Yes, please do!  A teaspoon to 1 and a half ounces will cause the scotch to become more sweet, marzipan and baklava like in terms of flavor.  I prefer this single malt with a little water.  Tasted neat there is a little hint of alcohol that disappears with water.

General Impressions

I asked Gerry Tosh of Highland Park Distillery for basic information on the 15.  Here is the email exchange:

From: Jason Debly
Email: jasondebly@gmail.com
Country: Canada (Eastern)
Comment: I operate a scotch whisky review blog
(http://jason-scotchreviews.blogspot.com/) and I intend to conduct a review of Highland Park 15 year old. Accordingly, I am seeking any information with respect to aging, distillation details and images concerning this bottling. Please note, I am not seeking a sample, as I conduct an independent review of various whiskies that I profile. If you have any information that you could provide, I may use some of it in my review. Certainly, if this is not a request that you wish to entertain, please disregard this email and do not trouble yourself to respond.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.


Sincerely,




Jason Debly

. . .

Here’s the response I received from Highland Park:

Always happy to help a whisky lover.
All you need to know is this.
Youngest whisky is 15 years old
30% of the casks used are first fill sherry cask
70% of the casks used are refill sherry casks
The big flavour difference is that we are using predominantly using
American oak sherry casks in the 15 where the 12,18 we are mainly using
Spanish oak.

Hope this helps.


G


Gerry Tosh
Head of Brand Education
Highland Park single malt scotch whisky
West Kinfauns Perth Scotland PH2 7XZ
Tel: +44 (0)1738 493611
Fax: +44 (0)1738 493838
Email: gtosh@edrington.co.uk
<>
Web: www.highlandpark.co.uk
. . .

So, first fill sherry casks obviously impart a stronger taste of sherry on the spirit in the casks than say a refill cask. Mr. Tosh also attributes the difference in taste from the 12 and 18 yrs bottlings to the different wood used. American oak!  Here's a link to his video tasting of the 15.

On the web, I have read that the Highland Park 12 and 18 yrs are aged in 90% ex-sherry casks and the remaining 10% in ex-bourbon casks. The Highland Park 15yrs is supposedly aged 50/50 in ex-sherry and ex-bourbon casks.  Judging from Mr. Tosh's email the use of ex-bourbon casks would be inaccurate.  So, in order to clarify this point I posed that question to Mr. Tosh.  Here is his prompt reply:

No worries about the extra question.

Highland park use NO bourbon barrels at all, we only use sherry casks.
We use American oak sherry casks to give it the citrus flavour we are looking for.


Regards


Gerry

Well, just goes to show that you cannot believe everything you read on the web!

In any event, the bottom line is that the 15 year old is less sherried than the 12 and 18 year old editions of this great distillery. And guess what? I like it! For my taste preference, I find the 12 and 18 a little more sherried than I would like. The 15 is more balanced and the vanilla flavor is a delight. It should be noted that most critics would disagree with my opinion. In fact, I think most scotch drinkers prefer the 12 and 18 to the 15.

Value for Money?
I think so. Some may disagree. This is by no means cheap in terms of price. For me, I have no problem paying a steep price if I am getting good quality. I believe that the price is commensurate with the high quality single malt scotch whisky I will taste.

One Problem

I have encountered one ‘problem’ with this single malt scotch. It is incredibly drinkable, so easy to sip that the bottle is disappearing too fast! We all have our crosses to bear, and so I will just steel myself in regards to overcoming this seemingly insurmountable problem!

Bottom Line
Highland Park 15 years is a high quality single malt.  The price is high but reasonable in light of the quality.  This scotch would make an excellent gift for the serious scotch fan.
Cheers!


Jason Debly

Photo credits:  Close up of Highland Park Label by Let Ideas Compete;
Photo of Highland Park Distillery entrance by J_
Copyright © Jason Debly, 2009-2012. All rights reserved.