Highland Park Valknut

淡淡煙燻味 加上 果香 尾韻中長。帶點煙燻風味

One of the few scotches made quite exceptional with a large ice ball, Valknut delivers a fudgey briney experience to the NAS offerings of this Orkney distillery. Nose: A little hay backed with malt, biscuits, orange-blossom honey, and what will be revealed to be dark chocolate. Palate: Fudge, Spearmint, a little hay, and a lasting brininess to balance out the otherwise decadent palate Finish: relatively short, but not unappealing. The fudge and touch of hay linger. Adding Ice removes the hay, softens the salt, and brings out fudge and a touch of Red Apple.

When you want a Scotch to cut through a winter chill, this is your remedy. Lots of peat and flavour to assist in defeating winter.

The Valknut is the second installment of what I'll call the Highland Park 'Valk Series.' It follows the Valkyrie (which I've yet to try). The third is the Valkfather, which I don't think has been released. There has been a recent proliferation of HP NAS releases. This one is of the more affordable and abundant of the lot. The Valk series feels like it's one level below the core range, if that makes any sense. They're not quite part of the core range, but aren't one-off, random releases either. Let's get into it. ***I came back to this one about a month or two later. A handful of reviews I did around this time came out strange and I'm thinking I burnt out my palate. I came back, and it's much better.*** Nose: Hardly any peat smoke is detectable. Instead its more of a sulfuric note. There is also some sweetness. Bubblegum, green apple, honey, toffee, and vanilla. There is also some cinnamon, black pepper, and clove spice. Walnut and sun-dried tomato round this one off, giving it a unique profile. Palate: Butterscotch, honey, vanilla, caramel, and toffee. Red berry (strawberry, cranberry). More of that sulfur note, but otherwise very little peat influence. Virtually no smoke. Some milk chocolate on the back end. Nutty and oaky. Finish: Moderate-long. Hot with cinnamon, black pepper, baking spice. Oak heavy. More of the sulfur and some delicious dark chocolate. This is a tricky one to rate. When I first cracked this a few months back, I thought that was a pretty good dram. Fast forward to last night, and I found it be atrocious. I had to postpone my review until tonight because it was so wildly different than I had remember it. I even compared to HP 15, which I'm quite fond of, and it held up. The nose, which was initially my favorite part of the dram, seems completely disjointed. That and the palate are overrun by the sulfur notes. I love those notes in Laphroaigs, but this one is too thin to in other areas to compensate for such a strong and potentially off-putting note. The finish was too harsh for 46.8%. I really wanted to like this one. And, strangely enough, I did when I first cracked it. But unlike with most bottles, I found that this one got significantly worse with time. I've had the HP 12 and 15, and now this Valknut. The score is: Age-Statement releases 2-NAS 0. I love the homage to Nordic culture as much as the next guy, but dammit Highland Park, focus less on the bottle design and more on what you're putting into it. ***Came back to this and I'm convinced that my previous assessment was a symptom of a burnt palate. The notes are much the same, but the nose is now pleasant, the palate robust, and the finish much more satisfying. Confidently bumped up from a 2.75 to a 3.5. I'm happy to see that as I'm finishing the bottle, my initial liking to this bottle was warranted.