01/10/2021 Highland Park

Highland Park 20yo d.1974 (46%, Direct Wines Ltd. First Cask, C#4329): nose: how pleasant is this mix of dunnage warehouse and autumn-morning undergrowth? It seems particularly fitting, on this grey and wet morning, brightened by a corner of blue sky that seems to hint at a clearer day. Anyway, we have chewy, artisanal, strawberry sweets, oily wood, crumbling away, a tiny drop of fish sauce (how quaint!), set honey, hardening in a jar, pollen and jasmine or lily-of-the-valley petals for shits and giggles. The decaying wood turns into an oiled (but dry) plank (a garden table, maybe), and the dunnage-warehouse clay floor turns into a mix of ash, smoky wood shavings and sawdust. The whole nose promises a warming and comforting experience. Mouth: old marmalade, left in a jar for years (or decades), and tainted by the oxidised tin lid -- that is right: there is something remotely metallic on the tongue. It meets expectations, so far: it is warming and comforting. The metal seems to grow, with copper coins and old pans entering the scene, and newly-faded flowers thrown onto a smoky campfire. the texture is a bit thin, perhaps, and a certain bitterness sets in that may not be for everyone. Again: orange marmalade. It could even be apricot stone, in fact. In any case, it is a fruity bitterness. The smoke is very distant, ethereal, and hard to pin down. Maybe from a moss-covered-hazel-tree fire? Finish: mellow and dry, it seems almost not strong enough on the way down. Pretty soon thereafter, however, it comes back with a vengeance and radiates warmth throughout the upper digestive system. Warm military biscuit, coated with bitter marmalade (in more prosaic terms, one could say: "dry, cereal-y, bitter and sweet," but it would read less entertaining), shrouded in a very thin veil of smoke. Repeated sipping appears to make it fruitier, juicier, closer to apricot... stone! Yes, it remains softly bitter after all, and that grows closer to green hazel tree, this time. The finish also leaves the mouth as if coated in butter, although it would be a bitter butter, rather than a salty one. 8/10