Scotch Preview: The $4,000 Highland Park '68

© Jen Murphy
Highland Park whisky tasting.

If there’s one thing that will lure me out into a New York City blizzard, it’s the chance to taste a super-rare whiskey. So the other evening, a handful of die-hard Scotch enthusiasts and I braved the snow so we could be among the first to taste Highland Park 1968 at a whiskey-tasting dinner at the Scottish gastropub Highlands. The Scottish distiller’s single malt—produced in extraordinarily small batches (only 1,550 bottles) and sold for an extraordinary price ($4,000 a bottle) will be released in May.

After we tried pours of the 18-, 25-, 30- and 40-year-old Highland Park whiskeys, the splash of '68 revealed it to be remarkably complex and smooth, with hints of ginger and clove and a fierce kick. But even with the extravagant packaging (an oak box inlaid with the Highland Park silver amulet) it still seems like an insane splurge in these recession-minded times.