Highland Park Bicentenary, 1977-1998, Bottle no. 01426, 40% abv.

This was released to celebrate the bicentenary of Highland Park distillery in 1998. Supposedly all 12,000... or was it 15,000 bottles?... sold out quite fast. However, the story goes that 690 bottles were unsold, set aside as samples and promotional events. They were "re-discovered" and released in the Japanese market... of course in a wood box instead of the original canister.

Nose: vegetative, black pepper, reminds me of a very mellow version of the chinese dish "black pepper beef". Palate: has body, feels like its massive but it flows effortlessly, oily, initial palate is cool, cooked vegetables with some oil, some low vanilla, mid palate is calm, pan fried snow/snap peas with bacon bits!!! Finish: long, the skin of snow peas, vanilla oil.

Dry glass: wax.

Haha this one felt like eating food. The aromas  were low, similar to very mellowed black pepper beef, even at such a low abv. The flavors revolved around pan fried snow peas, especially the skin housing the peas. Finish was subtley long. It was just an oily, cooked snow/sugar/snap peas kind of dram.

Grade: B+

Whiskyfun.com, Serge, 89 points for b.1998
Malt maniacs, 89 points on 10 reviews
Lawhiskeysociety, average, B+ on 3 reviews

Image courtesy of Eric Yee.

Eric Yee

🇭🇰 🇺🇸(LA, SF) -> 🇯🇵 (京都, 東京) -> 🇰🇷 (서울, 부산)