
2005 Secret Orkney (Highland Park) 19 Year Old "Signatory" K&L Exclusive #DRU 17/A63 #28 First Fill Oloroso Sherry Butt Cask Strength Non Chillfiltered Orkney Single Malt Scotch Whisky (700ml)

K&L Buyer
Review Date: 10/2024
It's barrels like this that make me so happy to be part of what the K&L Spirits Department does. But this barrel also represents one of the strangest dichotomies of this industry. We've always relied on our bottling partners to source great barrels and sell them at incredible prices. In fact, just a couple of decades ago, these bottlers were the only place you could get single casks at cask strength. Over the years, the brands themselves have taken such insane price increases that the independents found room to move up their prices, but when things got tough the brands are stuck. Our bottlers, however, don’t have such concerns and we've been able to negotiate incredible prices on some extremely special single casks during these unprecedented times. While the distillery last year sold us a cask one year younger of similar quality for $450 on the shelf, we're able to get an older (and I believe better) barrel of nearly identical first fill oloroso blue-chip single malt from Orkney at less than HALF the price. It's just insane to me that the people who distilled this couldn't find a use for it at somewhere in between $180 and $450. But, that's the magic of what we do at K&L. This barrel is so outrageously priced, I'm shocked that we still have any after the pre-arrival campaign. Heck we've been selling whiskies 7 years younger for nearly the same price! But I understand that even if on paper it looks good, you sometimes need to see it to believe it. SO, here we go. The color is a perfect tawny (1.4). The nose is absolute heaven but needs lots of air to fully express. Rich oloroso notes peppered with cooked yellow plums, extremely old antique leather, raspberry jam, roasted herbs, but as it opens it adds wild forest aromas of damp moss, old-growth pine, and citrus oil. On the palate the deep sherry character doesn't completely obliterate the rich smoky undertones that we love about Highland Park. Some IB barrels are completely devoid of the smoke element, but here is perfectly integrated to give that gorgeous ocean kiss and sweet burning heather. The finish is long spicy, but not tannic at all, with a building dark smoke in the very end. With a few drops of water, this turns into a whole different animal. The nose explodes—now vibrant dried stone fruit, deep roasted nuts and nougat, exotic spices too numerous to pinpoint. Now the palate is so rich and sweet yet the smoke stills lingers in the back. In many ways this is the perfect end of the night malt. There is no better way to spend an hour or two with an old friend than sipping this slowly after a long dinner. Should be about as perfect a cigar pair as you'll ever find if you're into that sort of thing, but in terms of value, we're in the upper echelons of what is possible in Scotch. A true triumph and honestly this crushes any previous Highland Park exclusives we've bottled. An exceptional malt by any measure, but give it time in the glass that it deserves.
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Notes
Signatory has long been one of the preferred independent bottlers on the market. For almost three decades now, we've been selling Signatory because their cask selection process is second to none in the industry. They also have a knack for building incredible collections of rare casks, so walking through their warehouse is an absolute dream. As you pass Bowmore from the 70s and Port Ellen, you'll stumble by Dallas Dhu and Rosebank. Yet it's some of the modern stocks that are most shocking! Highland Park on its own is pretty rare outside of distillery bottlings, but big European oak sherry butts (DRU series) are almost unheard of outside of the distillery. We've been comfortably committing to 10-12-year-old stock in similar caliber barrels at this same exact price, but this spirit absolutely loves the extra 7 years. The intense punchy tannin of the fresh European oak has developed into something otherworldly. Expect the incredible rugged Orkney spirit in a constant battle with the deep high-quality sherry, like the waves of the northern sea pounding a craggy yet beautiful atoll. Rich dried tobacco, old leather kept well, dense stewed fruit, a fragrant forest of earthy herbs and old-growth evergreen. The oloroso is powerful, but not overpowering. This single barrel was distilled on May 7th, 2005 and bottled at 19 years old on June 18th of 2024 at 55.2% abv. It was not colored or chillfiltered and is packaged in the classic Signatory decanter with black tin.
Product Details
Origin: Orkney, Islands Other - Scotland, Scotland
Type/Varietal: Malt
Alcohol Content: 55.2%
SKU: #1789500