#205: Highland Park Magnus

I want to write something poetic about nature, I feel like I haven't written a good Romantic era intro in a while but it's so bland and white and dead outside. I cleaned out the fridge for the first time, apparently in 5 years (please don't give me a hard time, 4 kids, cleaning out the back of the fridge just keeps falling down the priority list). I know it's been at least 5 years because we had 1 pot of pickles and 1 pot of jam that expired for each year since 2018. All the shades of sweet vs dill pickles, some with garlic in it, and then various rotten jams (which actually smells pretty good, like a lot of sherried scotches). It made for a nice symphony of aromas emptying those all out in the garden.

Highland Park Magnus: 40% abv, $60 CAD, no age statement, aged in sherry casks.

We sniff around:

Kyle starts us off with apples.

Scott agrees, malty.

Simon 2nds, apples, malty, with a bit of peat. Hovers the line between fermenty and wisp of smoke.

Just lots of apples Sean says.

Not really anything else to say about it other than three notes, but it is a nice nose. Scott adds a bit of a flat cheap beer aroma too.

We cheers.

Simon starts us off. It's light. Feels pretty watered down but it's still nice.

Scott says it's pretty copy paste from the nose. Goes for a stale apple juice with alocohol in it. Like an amature mixed cocktail.

Simon calls it oak water with a bit of apple juice. Bit of a flat beer taste.

Scott points to the malty note. Little sour salty note. Fuzzy peaches.

Bitter oaky finish Sean says.

For Kyle it's kind of all about the apples.

Simon gets a little salty note. The peat is hard to find. Maybe a little bit of that fermented note.

Reviews: Kyle starts us off. It's not complex by any means, mostly apples. Overall it's fine. Too light for him. He's going 65. Not going to land on his shelf. Scott's landing on 66. It's simple. Flavors are nice but it's too watered down. He would go somewhere else for that malty apple flavor. If that peat popped a bit more it would be more interesting. Sean is also at 65. This is something you might want on your shelf for something light. Might make an OK introduction scotch. Simon is landing on 70. He doesn't mind it. He's not going to seek it out but it's good. He likes that it's typical Highland Park. Trevor finishes the review with 58. He doesn't mind it, but he feels he got cheated on. Highland Park didn't do a great job balancing the peat and fruit notes. No smoke, out of balance, tastes a bit like a rye. Averages out to 64.8.

Overall: This didn't rate very well with us. None of us want to say it's bad but it's lacking in various ways and we wouldn't recommend it especially for someone who's into whisky enough to read these reviews.

Cheers!

The S&P Crew.