Highland Park Sigurd

I was wondering what to expect of this high end Highland Park, that comes in the most beautiful wooden box you can imagine, and i finally had it on a tasting event i held, and guess what? It was totally disappointing. Highland Park Sigurd tells the story of Sigurd "the Mighty", a powerful viking jarl that conquered and rule Orkney and northern parts of Scotland, till the day he died after challenging Máel Brigte, to a 40-man-a-side battle. Treacherously, Sigurd brought 80 men to the fight. Máel Brigte was defeated and beheaded. Sigurd strapped the head to his saddle as a trophy, but as Sigurd rode, Máel Brigte's buck-tooth scratched his leg. The leg became infected and Sigurd died of sepsis. Bottled at 43%abv, tawny color. On the nose, everything was dim, difficult to describe, and overall it felt like it had a lower tone. It doesn't have that heathery Highland Park Peat; it has oranges, the aroma feels dusty, with chocolate powder, cinnamon, sown land and smoke from a recently made cup of coffee. After a first sip, and a long time breathing, it released more aroma notes like Vanilla, Banana, Hawaian tropic / coppertone bronzer; macadamia, nutty, oaky, sawdust, and sand. There is this ghostly pineapple aroma surrounding everything but it is not really clear. On the palate it is sweet and normal. Caramel, pepper, dulce de leche and sulphur. The second sip was a little watery, vanilla and cinnamon. It tastes nice, but very simple and everything seems dimmed. Aftertaste was the good part of this dram. Sulphur, pepper; very metallic, like copper or blood you taste from your finger when you accidentally cut yourself with papers, it reminded me when you lick an Eveready AA battery as a kid. Earthy, salty, peaty. It has this ghostly pineapple surrounding everything. Overall this was not what i expected. All the Highland Park Parafernalia to get a very standard / normal whisky. It was mostly bourbonish than sherried which was announced in the box of this bottle. Completely dissapointing, you can actually buy better whiskies within this price. Still easy to drink, this doesn't have Highland Park DNA anywhere. Having said that, my score for it is 84 over 100, which is not bad, but nowhere near what was expected for it, the good aftertaste scored most of the points.

I am not a fan of retail, a blatantly commercial operation, nor a high-priced NAS, and here I have confirmed it. Much better the 18 yo Highland ... ________________________________________________________________________________ Non sono un fan dei retail, operazione biecamente commerciale, e nemmeno dei NAS ad alto prezzo, e qui ne ho avuto la conferma. Molto meglio il 18 anni della Highland...

A complex flavour while drinking. The nose has a slight iodine note. The Aftertaste is rich in roasted almond and honey.