A new find - old style Highland Park 12

[matthew2512]

Today I went out for a drive and came across a little liquor store that I had not seen before. Out of interested I went inside to see if they had any interesting whiskies and came across an old bottling of Highland Park 12. At first I thought it was the bottling released before the current flat bottle design (with the sunset label on the bottle) so I bought it as a nice drinking whisky. However, upon taking another look at home I realised that it is in fact not the bottling I thought it was. I believe this was the bottling prior to the sunset label.

Highland Park is a distillery that I have never paid much close attention to so unfortunately I do not know much about this bottle. Generally I find Highland Park whiskies to be nice but none particularly outstanding (I have tried the current 12, 15, 18, 25, 30 and the older style 12, 16 and 25 50.7%), my favorite being the old style 12 (sunset label) and the 25 50.7%. Is anyone able to give me any information on this bottling? I am particularly interested in the years that it was bottled, opinions on the quality of the whisky, and current value (I never sell whisky but do like to hold onto the more collectible ones for future drinking). This is a 1L bottle bottled at 43% and I paid NZ$100 for it (a little under 50 pounds).

[corbuso]

This was the standard packaging in the 1990s
Since I have compared heat to head with recent bottlings, I would not be able to give you more information about the flavour profile. I would suspect slightly sweeter, since the presence of the first fill bourbon casks is more present lately.

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[matthew2512]

Thanks for the info, from looking around it looks like the sunset label come out circa 2004 so I guess this bottle could even be as late as early 2000s. Do you have any idea of its current worth? Would you drink it or keep it?...I know thats probably a silly question as everyone has different views on collecting.

[Ganga]

The bottle you show is indeed the 1990s style bottling (my nomenclature is "slanty shoulder"). Around 2000 they switched to the round shoulder bottle and then around 2007 or 08 to the falsk style bottle. PKT and I did a HTH of all three that can be found in the Whisky Flights thread.

[matthew2512]

Great, thanks for posting your notes. I really enjoyed the sunset label bottling but have not been too keen on the latest ones ive tried. The strength of the NZ bottles dropped from 43% to 40% a couple of years ago as well, which probably didnt help.

[hyperfuji]

great find! my favorite of the 12 yo bottlings

damnit rich, i was not mentioned in the HTH although mine was better as we had all 3 different bottlings of the HP12 along with HP18 dumpy HP30.

from what i recall, this has a nice sherry undertone to it.

[The Third Dram]

I would suspect slightly sweeter...

...though still with great balance despite the sherried richness.

I can still recall (with much positively-tinged nostalgia) the issues of the 1980s, which sported a clear label appliqué and contained (perhaps) the finest 12-year old Highland Park distillate I've ever tasted.