Founded in 1798, Highland Park is a distillery with a deep history and even deeper web site. While we’ll get to the scotch in a few moments, it is worth noting that the Highland Park web site is a virtual encyclopedia. The presentation is pretty good, but the information contained within is off the charts. The level of detail they go in to about their history, region and process is quite extensive. They also have one of the best tasting and nosing guides that I’ve seen.

It seems like for every review I write, there is a distillery that touts something as their claim to fame and Highland Park is no different. Spend as little as two minutes on their web site of exceptional verbosity and you’ll run across the claim that they are “one of only a handful of distilleries where the expensive and physically demanding custom of turning malt by hand still takes place.” I’m not real certain about the significance of this fact, but figured if they went to the trouble of making the claim over and over again, some of you might have an opinion on the matter.

Color
As for the scotch itself, my immediate impression of the Highland Park 12y was that the packaging is very striking, but the color is quite pale. The distiller notes the color as “Glowing Amber”, but I would have to disagree on that one as I felt it looked a little bit more like “Light Beer”.

Nose
My guard went up with the color, but quickly came down with the nose. It has a decidedly earthy, peaty aroma, but had just the right touch of sweetness to suggest a reasonably balanced palate.

Palate
The nose didn’t fail me on this one as the palate confirmed my suspicions that this single malt would have a fairly smokey flavor with only a touch of fruity sweetness. The palate is quite smooth and easy though and I was a little surprised. I expected it to taste stronger and a bit harsher than than it did.

Finish
The finish isn’t particularly long, but this is where the sweetness finally starts to gets equal time with the peat and smoke.

Highland Park 12y is a pretty good single malt, but not one that has left much of an impression on me. It simply doesn’t fit my preferences. That being said, the one thing I do like about this scotch is that this is a very accessible single malt that favors the peat and smoke over the fruit and honey. Most single malts that fit that flavor profile tend to be strong and a bit much for casual whisky drinkers. This makes the Highland Park 12y a very good introductory scotch for someone drawn to more earthy single malts. While I haven’t tried any of the other Highland Park varieties, I would imagine that the 12yr is the perfect “starter scotch” for their line of products.

After reading some other reviews of this scotch, I noticed that many other sites mention that this is a good scotch for making mixed drinks. Personally, scotch is the last spirit I look to when making mixed drinks, but I can definitely see where this would be a better choice than an Oban or Balvenie. Something to keep in mind.

Come join us and celebrate the pleasures of a fine cigar. Your ticket price includes a variety of handmade cigars from the premium cigar producers. Indulge yourself on a full course steak dinner. Enjoy a variety of premium spirits at our tasting booth. The entertainment for the evening will be a surprise for all to enjoy. Explore the variety of cigars and accessories provided by our local cigar distributors.

Proceeds from this event will benefit Aleppo Shriners Childrens Transportation Fund

I’m a sucker for a nicely presented bottle of wine and while I didn’t personally pick out this bottle, it fits the profile of wines I usually single out on a crowded shelf. It has a simple, but colorful label on a dark bottle with a cheetah in mid stride. The overall presentation is quite striking.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m not really fond of fruity wines and I was not real crazy about what my nose was telling me with this Shiraz. It smelled heavily of berries and had an aroma that told me this was going to be sweet. As is typically the case, my nose wasn’t exactly spot on in its assumptions, but it wasn’t far off either. The flavor was better than I expected, the palate was a little more fruity than woody, but not nearly as much as I expected it to be. The finish was pleasant and about as dry as I normally like my wines to be. Overall, the wine was a little “light” for my tastes, but not at all unpleasant.

As I mentioned earlier the biggest problem with most vanilla K-Cups is how weak they are. I’ve heard, on more than one occasion, one coffee drinker ribbing another coffee drinker for drinking a flavored coffee. The implication being that real men don’t drink flavored coffee. So what, real men only eat vanilla ice cream? I’m not sure where that one started, but I bet it had something to do with the fact that most flavored coffees (K-Cup or otherwise) tend to be pretty weak. This is no light blend with a teaspoon of vanilla extract. The Timothy’s French Vanilla K-Cup, however, is anything but weak. This coffee is a very well balanced cup of joe with a subtle taste of vanilla.

If you like a little flavor in your coffee now and then, but still want to taste like coffee, then you should try the Timothy’s French Vanilla K-Cup.

Most of the single malts I have reviewed on the site, to date, have come from the Speyside region of Scotland and the Oban is my first from the west coast of Scotland. The distillery is located smack dab in the middle of the coastal resort community of Oban; called the “Gateway to the Isles”. While officially considered a “Highland” variety; Oban, much like the town is more of a “Gateway to Islay Malts”. It is in essence a well balanced blend between the Speyside and Islay varietals of single malt scotch.

I still remember going through the most convoluted, unscientific selection process nearly ten years ago when I selected my first bottle of single malt scotch. I was immediately drawn to the simple, historic feeling of the packaging. It was clean, simple, and just had that look of “We’ve been doing this a while and we know what the hell we’re doing.” When I read that the malt master was a MacDougall (My Mother’s maiden name) I took it as a sign and put my $55.00 down on the table. When I pulled the bottle out of the tube, I was stunned by the beauty of the golden liquid inside and that color has since been my benchmark fro what a good single malt should look like. It is unfair, I know, but such is life.

This is one complex single malt with a lot of things going on at once. The nose is fragrant and sweet, but it is also telling you to look for smoke coming from the bottle. That there will be two sides to every story your senses will tell throughout the tasting. The body is full and substantial, but it is quite smooth and rich. The palate is warming and the overall taste is substantially more malty and smoky than the other single malts I have reviewed (except the Ardmore perhaps). The finish, on the other hand, is fruity, smooth, and quite long. In fact, it is without a doubt my favorite part.

The Oban 14 Y.O is still my favortite single malt, but I will say it isn’t quite as legendary as my memory had built it up to be. Still it is a mighty fine scotch and one I would recommend to just about anyone.

Dinner & Drinks

Dinner was absolutely fabulous. The steak was gigantic and enormous. The general consensus was that there is one less herd of cattle in the world right now. The rest of the meal great too, but next to that steak the green beans and baked potato looked rather ordinary.

In addition to the meal, there was a tasting booth set-up near the back of the dining area with a wide variety of single malts, ports, and other forms of alcohol. Throughout the course of the night, I had a few old favorites like Oban and The Balvenie as well as some new ones. The McClelland Islay was probably my favorite, but the Glen Farlach (sp?) was quite good as well.

Auction & Raffle

Not only was I amazed at the items up for auction, but thoroughly blown away by the amount of money people were bidding on them. I’m sure the Stradivarius cigars are a great cigar, but $750 for twenty cigars seems like an awful lot of money to spend on something to be burned. I know it may sound like heresy to some of you, but I can think of a whole lot of things I’d rather spend $750 on. I mean for that price they should cut and light themselves on command. Then again, I’m probably just jealous I don’t have that kind of disposable income. The fact that I didn’t come up a winner in any of the raffles didn’t help either, but I must remind myself that it is for a good cause and I’d rather see the money go to helping kid’s than in the till at .

Entertainment

Last year’s entertainment was absolutely brilliant. Sir Jeremy Bell was funny, informative, and just plain entertaining. The Elvis karaoke guy they had this year was none of the above. He was a more than competent Elvis, an even better Johnny Cash, and a slightly less than stellar Neil Diamond, but he just didn’t fit with the theme and/or crowd. To make matters worse, the PA system was absolutely cranked and my ears only stopped ringing a few hours ago. On the bright side, they brought in “Blue Hawaii Elvis” and not “Rhinestone Jumpsuit Elvis”.

Hand Rolled Cigars

Benji Menendez of General Cigar was in attendance for the event and he brought with him one of his master rollers from his Miami factory, Jose Luis. Mr. Luis was hand rolling “La Gloria Cubana” cigars all night for the two hundred or so attendees. Watching Mr. Luis work was truly a sight to behold. The man worked with amazing speed and accuracy and like any great artisan, Mr. Luis made an extremely difficult task look simple. According to his assistant the tobacco is only partially aged and should be stored in a humidor for a couple of weeks at a minimum. I plan on giving mine at least a month or two.

The Loot

I was stunned at the amount of stuff they gave us last year and when I saw my “take” this year I was absolutely blown away. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here you go. I’ll leave this plenty big enough so you can see the names on the bands(You can see pictures of the take from last year’s event here.)

If you’re unfamiliar with the event, I strongly recommend you read my recap of last year’s smoker here.

You absolutely cannot miss this event!

I’ve got a copy of the official flyer for download here.
cigar-ad-2009_color

I’m just curious, are there any other “Fair Weather Smokers” out there or do I simply need to mail in my man card?

This particular bottle of wine hails from the El Bierzo region in Spain. I had never heard of the region before, but I wouldn’t exactly say I was surprised to learn that it existed. According to regulations by the DO (Governing body of wine makers in Spain), Crianza wines must be aged a minimum of 6 months in oak casks and 18 months in the bottle.

Immediately upon opening the bottle I detected a rather strong, fruity aroma. I don’t really like my wines really dry and woody, but I’d rather have a tall glass of Welch’s grape juice than an overly fruity glass of vino. I poured two healthy servings for my wife and I and couldn’t help but notice the strong aroma of berries. I was growing concerned that I was not going to like this wine very much. Upon first taste, however, all of my fears quickly evaporated. The flavor contained an excellent balance between the fruity overtones of dark berry and yet had a nice amount of that woody, dry taste you expect from a good red. Overall, my wife and I absolutely loved the wine. We just couldn’t get over how balanced the taste was. It went down nice and smooth and had a nice even finish.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m not one to drop a whole lot of money down on a bottle of anything. I get the shakes whenever I reach for a quality single malt of more than $50 bucks and damn near hyper-ventilate when I buy a cigar for more than $8 dollars a stick. You can call me cheap if you want, but I haven’t got a lot of money to spend on luxuries these days. Imagine my surprise when I learned that this fine bottle of wine costs a whopping $10.00! I can honestly say that this is the best red I’ve had under $50, let alone $15.