Highland Park 18 Year Viking Pride

Nose: Peat, oak, pear, vanilla Palate: Bitter oak, peat Finish: Oak, salt water Although it's not as sweet as the 12 year old and not very smoky, it has excellent balance. Little expensive but so damn good.

Well, this is my first Highland Park. Package and bottle are both beautiful! I read a lot about the excellent 18 year old of older days - so I have bought this newer edition Viking Pride (2019 batch) with quite some expectations. To be honest: I‘m not convinced yet! I don‘t find a lot of character in this whisky. I wasn‘t able to classify it as sweet, grainy or peaty, because I did not find any of these to be predominant. But it is not well balanced either. Bitterness might be the predominant note. 2019 batch: The nose is ok: Some nice sweetness. Some Honey. Barley. No Smoke - not really. Enjoyable. The palate: Here start my problems. Not sweet. Green herbs. Not much fruit. Not peaty. Quite bitter. Astringend. Not fun. Finish: Bitter. Dry. Herbs. I have tried it now on 4 different occasions and I really wanted to like it. But there is no love between us yet. I think that the old HP 18 year old must have been a different formula - according to the good reviews, but these do not match my bottle of Viking Pride. I am looking forward to taste the HP Cask Strength 1st edition, the Twisted Tattoo 16 year old, the Ragnvald and „The Light“ 17 year old - hoping very much to find more pleasure with them... And further: I was able to find an older edition of HP 18 yo without Vikings - the head-to-head comparision will come soon!

They must have changed more than the bottle design in 2017, because this isn’t nearly as good as the previous version. That’s a shame, because even at retail this drank better than some 25+ year old whiskies I’ve had.