At the start of April I noted that I am cutting down the the number of whiskies I review on the blog so that I can focus on finally drinking down all/most of the whisky I acquired over the last decade and a half. It’s going to be a slow campaign, with no more than four bottles projected to be opened and steadily consumed (with help from friends) each month. The campaign began two weeks ago with a Littlemill 23, 1989 from Archives; it continued last Monday with a Talisker 10 released in the 1990s. Here now to close out the month is a Highland Park 25 that was distilled in 1988 and bottled in 2013 by Cadenhead. It’s not a single cask but a batch release. Bottles went to both the European and US markets. Neither label notes a year of distillation or cask information but this is rather obviously sherry cask whisky in colour, aroma and flavour. Whiskybase says “sherry butts” and lists 1086 bottles. So probably a pair of butts—assuming, that is, that no Glendronach-style shenanigans were involved, in which case this might be from a clutch of 24 year old ex-bourbon casks that were dumped into “rejuvenated” sherry butts for an additional year before bottling. At any rate, I opened my bottle a few days ago and waited for it to settle down a bit before taking my initial notes. Here they are.

Highland Park 25, 1988 (55.7%; Cadenhead; sherry cask; from my own bottle)

Nose: Leather, plum sauce, oak extract, pencil lead, damp earth. Salty/nutty as it sits. With more time the dried orange peel from the palate is out in force. A few drops of water brighten and emphasize the citrus further and also pull out a bit of toffee.

Palate: Comes in with the leather and a fair bit of dried orange peel (think the almost woody kind) which leads into apricot as I swallow. Quite approachable at full strength with rich texture. More of the fruit on the second sip, with the apricot emerging earlier. More savoury now: reconstituted mushrooms, concentrated beef stock. With time the gunpowder from the finish emerges earlier along with salt (salted pistachio shells). Brighter here too with water and a little more woody

Finish: Long. The fruit mingles with pencil lead and then some sharper notes emerge (savoury gunpowder). Beefier and saltier here too with time. As on the palate with water but the savoury notes and the salt are still here.

Comments: This bottle has evolved quite quickly since I opened it. The first pour was a little unbalanced with sherry separation on the finish. On the second pour the gunpowder was a bit too talkative and sharp. On the third pour it began to come together very nicely with the fruit taking centerstage. Now the fruit and the earthy and savoury notes are in good balance. Not one for the dedicated sulphur-phobe but it’s right in my sherry bomb sweet spot. I look forward to seeing if/how it changes further over the next few weeks.

Rating: 90 points.