Highland Park 16 Year Old The Valhalla Collection Odin Kirkwall Isle of Orkney Single Malt Scotch Whisky ABV 55.8% Vol 700ml / 70cl

DESCRIPTION

TASTING NOTES (by Whiskyfun.com)

From a combination of firstfill sherry casks and refill hogsheads. As usual, all this Norse paraphernalia tends to leave us Latins rather cold, but after all, it’s the content that counts. I mean, the bottle's content, not the marketing content.

Colour: deep gold.

Nose: the sherry feels, and comes with some raisins soaked in kirsch as well as touches of gunpowder and nutmeg. Then we find more eau-de-vie-soaked cake (fruitcake with dates and figs), charcoal, burning pipe, struck matches and strong mead, with a fermentary side. It’s a little rough, perhaps, and may lack a bit of the luscious complexity of older sherried Highland Parks.

With water: some kind of smoked stout, smoky mustard, walnuts… A wee feintiness, perhaps, but after tne minutes, more biscuits do emerge and it rather gets rounder.

Mouth (neat): rather hot and spicy. Cumin, pepper, bitter oranges, raisins, slivovitz, ginger. Rather gritty, with a slightly acrid smokiness. With water: the spices keep singing (nutmeg, caraway, ginger) and suggest some active oak’s been used. Smoky walnuts and more bitter oranges. Ginger liqueur.

Finish: rather long, peppery, slightly salty/smoky. Bitter oranges again in the aftertaste. Comments: very fine, rather powerful, but not very ‘polished’. The oak’s spices are a tad loud for my taste. Was that Odin’s personality? SGP:462 - 86 points.

PRODUCT SUMMARY