![]() All are presented in black glass bottles and with similar packaging that was penned by a Danish designer, none have age statements, and all hover at close-to 46% ABV. That floor-malted barley is lightly peated to around 20 ppm, and uses Orkney peat from Hobbister Moor near the distillery, which is lighter, more floral and heathery than that of the other island malts. ![]() All three have used higher (but unspecified) percentages of the distillery's own floor-malted barley than the usual proportions, which are approximately 20% floor-malted to 80% externally-sourced barley. The bottlings that we're looking at today are from the 'Viking Legend' series, which is a trio of limited releases based around the Nordic myths of Valhalla (basically viking warrior heaven) and Odin. Some of these are actually hidden gems - the 'Full Volume' first-fill bourbon cask bottling that I reviewed last year comes to mind straight away. Thankfully there is a multitude of more reasonably priced Highland Park to choose from, and latterly they seem to have (finally) slowed things down a little with the releases. Is being part of Scotland so distasteful? Still a Scotch Whisky, though! The pricing on that 12-year old has stayed reasonable, with the newer 10-year old slightly lower as you'd expect, but the 18-year old is now a $250 AUD bottle, and it's still at 43% ABV, while the 25-year old is now a $1000 bottle, which is frankly ridiculous. But along with a recent packaging & bottle redesign they've now found it necessary to add names to those age statements: the 10-year old is now "Viking Scars", the 12-year old is now "Viking Honour", and the 18-year old is now "Viking Pride". ![]() Ignoring the already-flooded travel retail category, the Highland Park core range has stayed relatively sane, with the 12-, 18-, 21- and 25-year olds, and they've also recently added a 10-year old entry-level whisky to that category. ![]() A quick look at the distillery's website for clarity shows a staggering total of 52 releases, not including the "archive" section. #Highland park valknut review plus#There was the core range, then a viking range, then a travel retail range, then another viking range, then a viking travel retail range, and then a re-vamped core range, plus a lot of other seemingly random limited releases, seemingly each with less & less differentiation between themselves but with more obscure marketing angles, and it all just became too hard. The viking marketing was getting a little tiresome (and it still is if you ask me), and the sheer number of releases from the distillery were and are making it difficult to keep track. I must admit that I've lost touch with Highland Park's official bottlings in recent years. ![]()
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