I must admit that I've lost touch with Highland Park's official bottlings in recent years. The viking marketing was getting a little tiresome (and it still is if you ask me), and the sheer number of releases from the distillery were and are making it difficult to keep track. There was the core range, then a viking range, then a travel retail range, then another viking range, then a viking travel retail range, and then a re-vamped core range, plus a lot of other seemingly random limited releases, seemingly each with less & less differentiation between themselves but with more obscure marketing angles, and it all just became too hard. A quick look at the distillery's website for clarity shows a staggering total of 52 releases, not including the "archive" section. Ignoring the already-flooded travel retail category, the Highland Park core range has stayed relatively sane, with the 12-, 18-, 21- and 25-year olds, and they've also recently added a 10-year old entry-level whisky to that category. But along with a recent packaging & bottle redesign they've now found it necessary to add names to those age statements: the 10-year old is now "Viking Scars", the 12-year old is now "Viking Honour", and the 18-year old is now "Viking Pride". Is being part of Scotland so distasteful? Still a Scotch Whisky, though! The pricing on that 12-year old has stayed reasonable, with the newer 10-year old slightly lower as you'd expect, but the 18-year old is now a $250 AUD bottle, and it's still at 43% ABV, while the 25-year old is now a $1000 bottle, which is frankly ridiculous. Thankfully there is a multitude of more reasonably priced Highland Park to choose from, and latterly they seem to have (finally) slowed things down a little with the releases. Some of these are actually hidden gems - the 'Full Volume' first-fill bourbon cask bottling that I reviewed last year comes to mind straight away. So all hope is not lost!
The bottlings that we're looking at today are from the 'Viking Legend' series, which is a trio of limited releases based around the Nordic myths of Valhalla (basically viking warrior heaven) and Odin. All three have used higher (but unspecified) percentages of the distillery's own floor-malted barley than the usual proportions, which are approximately 20% floor-malted to 80% externally-sourced barley. That floor-malted barley is lightly peated to around 20 ppm, and uses Orkney peat from Hobbister Moor near the distillery, which is lighter, more floral and heathery than that of the other island malts. All are presented in black glass bottles and with similar packaging that was penned by a Danish designer, none have age statements, and all hover at close-to 46% ABV. As much as I don't like the heaped-on and totally unnecessary viking-heavy marketing that is plastered onto most of the Highland Park releases, I must admit that these bottles themselves do look good - they're much more simplistic than those of the current core & travel retail range, although I don't quite see the point of the black glass - something that this distillery seems to love, which seems slightly contradictory to their policy of never adding e150 colouring to any of their single malts. Also slightly contradictory to that policy is the distillery chill filtering the majority of their whiskies, even at strengths above 46%, although they do point out that this filtration happens at a higher temperature than with most chill filtered whiskies, even going to the lengths of declaring that on their packaging in some cases. The only officially non-chill filtered Highland Park official bottling that I can recall was Dark Origins, which was quite a few years ago now, although there probably were/are more. I'm sure you'll agree that it would be better for all if they'd just stop chill filtering altogether!
The samples for these three quick-fire reviews were provided by Mark Hickey, Brand Ambassador for Spirits Platform, the Australian importer & distributor for Highland Park. I decided to review all three in sequence since they all follow the same theme, so will make for an interesting comparison, and due to sample size and in the interests of brevity they'll be more concise than my usual stand-alone reviews. But I'm sure they'll still be of use. As mentioned, all are bottled at their natural colour but are likely chill filtered, and all are a mix of ex-bourbon, ex-sherry and refill casks, and use a higher proportion than normal of the distillery's own floor-malted barley. Price-wise these three are all in the same ballpark at $140-150 AUD, and all are still readily available. Tasting time!
The first of the three bottlings is Valkyrie, which was released in 2017. It's a mix of American and European oak sherry casks and American oak ex-bourbon casks, and refill casks, plus the higher proportion of floor-malted barley as mentioned above. This one is bottled at 45.9%, and why the hell you wouldn't just make that a nice round 46% is beyond me! As we'll know from Thor: Ragnarok, the Valkyries were female warriors, and in Norse mythology they were angel-type beings that would choose which dead warriors were taken to Valhalla (Viking heaven) from the battlefield. But rather than glorify their beliefs let's also remember that the Vikings were the bad guys, they were invaders, who liked to murder, rape & pillage and claim things for their own. But you won't find that mentioned on any of Highland Park's packaging.
Colour: Gold with amber tinges.
Nose: Fresh & light, with dusty hay, white pepper, and lightly waxy red apples. Very soft floral peat in the background, with some dried apricot and a hint of spearmint.
Texture: Light-medium weight, clean, a little raw heat but not harsh.
Taste: More white pepper, plus vanilla cream, slight red apples, slight waxy-ness. Maybe some ginger. Richer than the nose suggested, but this is not a particularly rich whisky.
Finish: Short length. Lightly waxy red apples, white pepper and a little wood spice and leather.
Score & Notes: 3 out of 5. A pleasant-enough entry level dram, but it seems a little youthful and a little raw underneath the outer coating. It's notably Highland Park in feel though, slightly boosted maybe from the extra ABV, but this is not on the level of Dark Origins or Full Volume.
Next up is Valknut, the 2018 release, which is bottled at a higher strength of 46.8%, and they've added a small amount of Orkney-grown Tartan barley to this recipe, presumably malted at the distillery. This one was "predominantly" matured in American oak sherry casks, with no details given on the other cask types. Valknut is the name of a Nordic symbol (see the box above) that in their mythology was how the Valkyries marked or designated the warriors that were selected to go to Valhalla. To me it looks like an angular take on the three-legged Triskelion (derived from the Greek 'Triskeles', meaning three-legged) symbol that was used in a number of ancient cultures, including Celtic and Greek - the symbol used in the 'coin' on Kilchoman's bottle is a good example, as is the flag of the Isle of Man.
Colour: Gold w/amber again, same as the Valkyrie.
Nose: Fresh & light again, but it's also more muted. More red apples, but also some red fruit - dried raspberries. Dusty grassy malt, caramel chews, a drier vanilla and some buttery oak.
Texture: Light weight. More mellow, but not as clean, more muted. A little raw heat again.
Taste: More jumbled, not as expressive. Black pepper this time, more punchy as well. Some grassy malt comes through, dry vanilla with more dried berries and nutty oak, and some sandalwood.
Finish: Short length. Caramel chews, drying oak spice (sandalwood and cinnamon) and a little raw spirit - not in a harsh way though. Hint of green apples and heather to finish.
Score & Notes: 2.5 out of 5. More muted, maybe even a little dull. Not as bright or expressive as Valkyrie, and less typically Highland Park - maybe the local barley? But I also suspect those sherry-seasoned American oak casks had a very short seasoning period.
Finally we have the third & final release in the series, Valfather, which was released in 2019. The bottling strength is slightly higher again at 47%, and this one is matured in refill casks - it's also claimed to be the peatiest whisky that Highland Park has released to date, but again they haven't specified how much of their own floor-malted barley was used, so that's possibly only because of the refill cask maturation letting more of the peat influence show through. Valfather, apparently meaning 'Father of the Slain' refers to Odin, the Norse God who was also referred to as 'The All-Father', but most of us will know him as Anthony Hopkins...
Colour: Same again. Which is interesting since there're no first-fill casks in here.
Nose: Drier and brighter. Spearmint, both red & green apples, soft ash and dried heather. Black pepper, a light chalky mineralic note, and fruit-flavoured boiled lolly / hard candy floral sweets.
Texture: Medium weight. Drier, cleaner, more floral and mineralic. No rawness or heat to this one.
Taste: Soft, dry, earthy & heathery peat. Dried flowers (pot purri), clean candle wax, black pepper and lime juice. Boiled sweets / lollies again too.
Finish: Short-medium length. Pepper & wax carrying through, plus the dry heathery peat, that chalky minerality, plus some dark chocolate and hints of dry spices - cinnamon, and maybe curry powder?
Score & Notes: 3 out of 5. My pick of the three, but it's less typically 'Highland Park' than the other two, with more minerality and a more subtle sweetness. The peat is certainly more evident, but this is not the peatiest Highland Park, not by a long shot. For starters it would likely need to be cask strength for that to even be possible.
Overall Notes: Three notably different whiskies here. All are on the subtle side, but in different ways, and none are going to blow your socks off - especially if you're used to higher strength independent bottlings from the same distillery. That said, the distillery DNA is there, or maybe 'house style' is a better term. I would guess that all three are young whiskies, with possibly the Valfather being left a little longer thanks to the refill cask maturation. The Valknut is the more muted of the three, while the Valkyrie is more expressive but also seems a little raw, so as mentioned Valfather would be my pick of this trio.
I don't want to seem overly cynical or negative here, these are enjoyable whiskies, but they're not as expressive as I feel Highland Park should be - at least when aimed at the whisky fan. It's not a question of ABV, either, as the Dark Origins and Full Volume weren't that much higher in ABV. But if you're not worried about such things and you want a reasonably priced example of a Highland Park that is a little different to the age statement core range, the Viking Legend series is worth a look. Just ignore as much of the Viking marketing as you can - in my opinion the distillery, or rather their marketing department, needs to dial it back a bit, it's not needed is this age of whisky discovery. There's a growing demand for transparency and honesty in this day & age, not marketing 'flannel' and needless story-telling. So we need more real and practical information on the whisky, and less - pardon the French - bullshit. And that's what grinds my gears!
Cheers!
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