Nose: Sweet meadow blossom honey, malt extract, orange peel and a little touch of earthy peat smoke. While seemingly simplistic at first the nose blooms over time to reveal itself as a petite but very well balanced parcel of aromas. Mild barley sugar and a herbal note like crushed bracken fern waft in the background. Palate: A gentle arrival with sweet cereal as the main character. There's some orange notes, dark malt and a herbal presence in the development but unfortunately it has a watery and weak personality. You can sense the presence of good sherry casks through a fresh woody note and some crisp spice, but their contribution is weak and diffuse. Finish: Short. Malty, but it tails off very quickly into a nondescript and mildly tannic aftertaste with a tiny lingering memory of smoke. Instantly recognisable as Highland Park, but in a soft and cosy form. Less briskly fresh than the 10 or 12 year old expressions, and way less complex than the 18. It starts out well but in every stage of tasting it drops down a notch until bottoming-out with a very short finish. The nose is light and soft but good, however the palate does not quite live up to its obvious potential. 40% was absurdly too weak a strength for such an understated whisky profile - at 46% this would have been a considerably better dram. The finish is frustratingly short - one of the fastest finishes I've ever tasted on an HP. This is another of the seemingly endless Viking hero/ethos/culture series that have emerged from this distillery over the last few years. Sigh. I dream of the day when Edrington puts this marketing strategy behind them and lets the distillery knuckle down to just making the best possible age statement whiskies it can. The official tasting notes here are accurate but 79 is a harsh score for this pleasant dram which, with all it's shortcomings, is still better than average quality. Tasted from a 30ml sampler. "Above Average" : 81/100 (3 stars)