I figured that it was finally time to review my Christmas gift from my buddy @Generously_Paul. He picked this bottle out for me during the last auction at SWA and gave it to me a few weeks before the holiday. I believe he ended up winning it for 40£ and after fees and shipping he probably had $65-70 in it. What an excellent gift- thanks again, my friend. This bottle was part of the HP Warrior Series, which was an NAS set released back in 2017, IIRC. There are 6 bottles ranging in price from $40 to over $1000. The Svein was bottled at 40% and spent its entire life in ex-American sherry casks. I’m pretty sure it’s chill filtered, but I don’t think there was coloring added. The appearance was a rich gold and it made heavy, oily drops in the tasting glass- good evidence there was lots of water used to dilute it to 40%. The nose was dominated early on with honey and light citrus. There’s almost no smoke in play here, a slight earthy peat can be coerced with time and lots of turbulence induced in the glass. Some caramel and toffee rounded things out. No heat, no ABV notes though. No surprise. The palate is richly sherried- I’m sure a good portion of this whisky had to matured in first-fill casks to impart this much sherry at this low of an ABV. The lack of smoke is again perplexing, and there’s a full oil slick on the tongue after even the tiniest of sips. The sherry is nice but it’s overly weak on power and peat- which isn’t something I’d expect from Highland Park. It’s odd, but I gotta say this bottle is crushable- and for $50 for a 1L size there’s great value added with that aspect. The finale is short to medium (medium if you’re crushing it with 3-4oz pours lol). There is some light oak notes and a grape sweetness that I didn’t pick up initially. Ultimately it ends up drier than I expected but that’s fine when you wanna power through larger pours/a larger bottle. Needless to say, I killed this bottle in just over 3 weeks (Note: I almost always pour 10-14oz of every bottle I open into samples for friends or pours for my long term sample collection- so I didn’t kill a liter by myself in that short of a period). Overall, this is what it was probably meant to be- something a casual drinker can crush and not be overwhelmed by any one aspect. It’s for the masses and it works well- especially if you factor in price point. Grab a bottle if you still see them sitting on a shelf or get a pour at a bar for $4-5 and you’ll be pleasantly surprised. You can’t really go wrong here. 3-3.25 stars for the liquid, with a bump for value pricing. Cheers.