Slainte-Mhath
Highland Park 18 Year
Single Malt — Islands, Scotland
Reviewed
November 16, 2019 (edited May 2, 2020)
Highland Park's excessive abuse of the Nordic mythology is really putting me off. However, let's review the old HP18, not the Edrington marketing dept. Very dense and round, the nose unfolds with orange peel, creamy toffee and subtle peat smoke. Apricots, heather honey and cloves emerge from the back. After a sweet and sour arrival, the palate develops with a complex array of flavors. Dried fruits, spices and oak take turns with ginger, mint and hints of coffee. Slightly dry and ashy, the medium finish fades. This great malt doesn't need any Viking BS!
RATING: 4.2/5.0 stars ≙ 89 pts → FIRST-CLASS [+]
110.0
EUR
per
Bottle
Create Account
or
Sign in
to comment on this review
@Slainte-Mhath Yes lovely whiskey but crazy pricing for 17 and 15 yr whiskey. At half the price I would have got bottles.
@Soba45 I've tasted Ice & Fire, but would I buy a bottle? Certainly not. Maybe at half the price, but I don't want to waste my money on fancy packaging.
@Slainte-Mhath Yup agree. It's not the viking branding per sey I dislike it's the fact they ate using it to flood the mkt with so many NASs a lot of which are same same. Unless it's a highly rated one e.g. Ice,Fire, Light, Dark I stay away.
@cascode Well said! I am not a huge Scapa fan, but at least they don't flood the market with fancy Viking products.
@Slainte-Mhath Well in a way they are, but it's lower key - "Skiren" and "Glansa" are both old norse dialect words. Using those as expression names is a good deal more subtle than calling a malt "Thor's Curly Armpit Hair" (or whatever Highland Park has come up with this week) and sticking it in a bottle covered with appropriated zoomorphic bas reliefs.
@cascode Good point. It would indeed be interesting to know if the new style of bottles was the idea of Edrington or Highland Park distillery. However, if this is a matter of Orcadian pride linked to their Nordic heritage, why isn't Scapa doing the same (please no!)?
@Slainte-Mhath I can see how the whole viking-marketing thing could be irksome - I certainly do find it a little that way myself and I miss the old style bottles that had a reserved and stately charm to them. I wonder how much of the viking-ness is mandated by Edrington and how much is genuinely embraced by Highland Park. Orcadians are OBSESSED with their norse heritage, I think not so much because they are wanna-be viking, but more that they just like to stick it to Scotland. "Hey you - on the mainland - get stuffed, we're not celts!" :-)
Additional comment: Living in Norway, I am pretty annoyed by Highland Park's 'Viking bla bla'. Sure, Orkney has a link to Nordic culture, but Edrington is almost pretending that the island is a part of Norway. If HP was a Norwegian or Swedish distillery, I probably wouldn't mind, but this is simply over the top, so pardon my rant. I haven't bought any of the new bottles, and I have no plans to do so. I liked the old style of HP bottles, and to me this is just another example why marketing departments are poison for the craft presentation of whisky.