Highland Park The Light – 17yo 52,9%!

Dear friends, followers and supporters alike! The past two weekends I had the great pleasure to work the Stockholm Beer & Whiskyfestival, as always, working for Edrington Sweden. It was really great to be back at the festival in Stockholm, a festival that I haven't had the opportunity to make it to since 2012. But now that I live in the capital, it was definitely a must for sure. Anyway, the nice people at Edrington gave me permission to sample some of their upcoming releases, one of them being Highland Park The Light!

Just as The Dark, this whisky is 17 years old and has been bottled (watered to) 52,9% The number of bottles produce is 28K. To find out more about the story of The Light, please do check out this site. So what do we know about the maturation of this whisky? Well, all we really know is that it's been matured in refill american oak casks. Here in Sweden, The Light will (finally) be released this thursday as a web-release at the swedish state-monopoly, and you can view the product by clicking here. Ok, let's see what this whisky is all about

Nose: 

Aaaah, fresh, lively and ”excotic”! The top layer holds soft banana candy (the swedish candy bananskum on the spot) intermingling with very soft vanilla/fudge. Below that I find yellow kiwi, yellow pear, satsuma peal, peach-candy, and sunwarm overripe green gooseberries. Stirring the glass the excotic fruityness goes on and on and on… yeah, this is really fruity folks! In terms of the fruityness The Light is quite similar in style to ICE, but with the difference being that The Light is much more soft; delicate and calm. In the final layer (the deepest one) I find a very light/fragile and fleeting peatyness that draws mostly on farmyard and hay, and in the very distant on anise (not quite liquorice) and almondpaste. Ok let’s taste!

The Light is certainly light ;)

Taste:

I definitely expected this to have a fruity start, but, the nose is betraying. Instead it opens up on vanilla sweetness, vanilla cream, melted butter, and Werther’s Original/toffee caramel (by the way, no sign whatsoever of the high strength). This goes on for quite some time (say 4-5 seconds) only to be abruptly interrupted at first by sea-salt and then by a big oak-y-ness (there is something green going on in the oak, not herbs, but something else that I can’t quite put my finger on…). Then I get a medium-bodied peatyness which quite quickly evolves into dryness and white half-boiled asparagus. The aftertaste definitely holds banana-peal and some quite heavy bitter almond.  

To sum up:

Well folks, considering that the two-part series of The Dark and The Light is all about contrasts, the people at Highland Park have definitely managed to achieve just that with the difference between the first and the latter; as we know The Dark is matured completely in first-fill european oak sherry casks, and the Light is nothing at all like The Dark. The refill american oak casks used for The Light simply must predominantly be bourbon casks. I can draw no other conclusion from my notes on the nose, nor on the taste. As mentioned, the high strength is not noticeable, and no matter whether this is taken into consideration or not, this dram sure is soft, delicate and calm on the nose, and the taste gives you quite a flavorsome journey indeed. Finally a remark (or rather a hopeful wish): I do find bourbon cask matured Highland Parks to be highly interesting, and it’s great fun that the distillery has released more and more of this maturation as limited editions. But, given the high quality of these editions, maybe it’s time to do a permanent release?! Yes please!  

Big thanks to the people at Edrington Sweden for the opportunity to try this release, and to be able to review it before the launch. Please make sure to follow my FB-page by clicking here, my instagram by clicking here, and my twitter-page by clicking here. Copyright © and All Rights Reserved on all tasting notes and text by SamuelWhisky and pictures likewise belong to SamuelWhisky, unless stated. If you would like to use any such material that belongs to SamuelWhisky or associated with SamuelWhisky, please ask by sending me an email to samuelkarlssonorebro [at] gmail [dot] com and by stating the source.   

Pic borrowed from thewhiskyexchange.com

Highland Park – FIRE 15yo 45,2% ABV

Friends and followers! Last weekend I had the great pleasure to once again work the Linköping Whiskyexpo for Edrington. This means taking care of Highland Park (among many other great whiskies in the Edrington portfolio). The first thing I noticed when I arrived to the festival was that we had Highland Park FIRE in the stand! Now, since FIRE has not yet been launched and released here in Sweden, working at the festival was a great opportunity for me to try it before the release. And of course I grasped that opportunity, and I'm very thankful that the nice people of Edrington let me :)

FIRE will be available on the swedish state monopoly on Friday the 17th of February (1331 bottles, and you can view it here). 

Just as ICE is a very special expression of Highland Park (read my post on ICE here), so is FIRE. What is special about it? Well you see, FIRE has been fully matured in refill Port wine seasoned casks and Highland Park has to my knowledge never released a whisky matured in casks that previously held port wine. Adding to that, during the festival I spoke to Martin Markvardsen about the maturation process of FIRE, and if I understood Martin correctly (and if I remember correctly), the whisky has first spent 13 years in port pipes and was then transferred to port hogsheads for a final 2 years of maturation. 

For info on the concept and idea behind HP FIRE, please do check out this great video, where Martin shares the story of FIRE. Ok! Let's see what we have here! 

Nose:

When opening the bottle and nosing, the first thing that comes to mind is actually something a bit ”burnt”, sort of. Maybe something like burnt dark raisins intermingling with peat. Pouring a dram into the glass and nosing from a distant (ten centimeters or so) I first get a very slight and soft touch of oranges, not really orange juice, rather orange peel (you know the way your fingers smell when you’ve peeled an orange?). There’s even some light milk chocolate with a scent of oranges. Also there is light liquid honey, a honey that is quite summer-y and flower-y, very nice and soft… But wait, there are more fruits in there, overripe yellow kiwi and something reminding me of… is it peach candy or is it mango? Anyways, moving closer so that I have my nose in the glass I first get a whiff of medium strong alcohol, surrounding that is that slightly ”burnt” note again, but this time something like burnt sugar rather than burnt dark raisins. Nosing even deeper into the glass, interestingly enough I do pick up sweet liquorice candy! At the same time, there is also something salt-y going on here. So, even though the nose all in all is complex it’s also very ”calm” if you know what I mean? The only thing on the nose that pops out from the general fruity-ness, honey stuff and burnt raisins and the burnt sugar, is that peedie bit of medium strong alcohol, meaning, it smells just a bit ”strong” although it is only 45,2% ABV. Okey, moving on to the taste!

Martin to the left, SamuelWhisky to the right

Taste:

Wow! First, it starts off on light liquid honey, but then, Boom! Everything goes very salt-y! Sea salt in fact, also of course a fist full of heather-honey-peat, and that’s with an emphasis on peat. Now, this first part of the taste is initial and quite fast, say 2-3 seconds. After that, when swallowing, it moves very quickly into bicycle inner-tube, some kind of vegetal and/or herbal feeling intermingling with rubber/”plastic” and metallic notes, in turn intermingling with peat. In the early aftertaste, the bicycle inner-tube thingy and the vegetal/herbal stuff, moves on (within a time period of 5 seconds or so) into a mix of heavy almond paste, and even more vegetal/herbal stuff… In the late aftertaste a sort of distant creamy-ness together with ashy peat becomes more and more apparent, finally becoming the center of attention together with someting like the kind of ”mould” that is on brie cheese. In terms of texture the aftertaste can be described as being lightly dry (not heavy dry, not medium dry, but lightly dry). From swallowing, the length of the dram is about one minute long but it starts to fade  softly after thirty seconds or so. 

To sum up:

So, what’s the most interesting and good thing about this dram? 

1). For me, something that makes a dram interesting and intriguing is the quality/characteristic that the nose is basically completely different from the taste, meaning for instance that none of the fruity stuff on the nose is there on the taste. 

2). Both the nose and the taste is very complex, and complex in different ways. 

3). The move by HP to mature in a type of casks and seasoning it has never before done is absoutely brilliant which makes both the nose and most of all the taste very hard to anticipate.

How is the concept of ”FIRE” visible or obvious on the nose and the taste?

On the nose we have the peedie bit of medium strong alcohol but most of all the burnt raisins and the burnt sugar. On the taste everyhing signals ”FIRE”, apart from the honey and the creamy-ness as well as the brie type ”mould”.

Could there have been even more ”FIRE”?

Yes, but I think that it would have to entail first of all a higher strength and second of all the use of first fill port casks. 

Is this a good whisky? Yes, definitely. Why? Well first of all, the fruity stuff on the nose is absolutely beautiful! And second, you will never have tasted a HP such as this one, and you will very seldom come upon a nose and taste so different from each other than it is in this dram

pic borrowed from/belongs to systembolaget.se

Please make sure to follow my FB-page by clicking here, my twitter-page by clicking here, and my instagram by clicking here. Copyright © and All Rights Reserved on all tasting notes and text by SamuelWhisky and pictures likewise belong to SamuelWhisky, unless stated. If you would like to use any such material that belongs to SamuelWhisky or associated with SamuelWhisky, please ask by sending me an email to samuelkarlssonorebro[at]gmail.com 

pic borrowed from/belongs to abbeywhisky.com

Highland Park – ICE 17 yo 53,9% ABV

Friends and followers! Two months ago (the 10th of march) I was very fortunate and lucky to attend the release event of Highland Park ICE at the Edrington head quarters in Stockholm, Sweden! I think you can all imagine that I was pretty excited to be one of the first people in Sweden, in the good company of other bloggers, whiskywriters, connoisseurs and guests, to try a new whisky from Highland Park Distillery!

When we entered the tasting room a beautifully decorated table met our eyes. 

Especially cool was, standing at the back of the room, the visually attracting BIG cube of Ice, with an actual bottle of the new whisky frozen in to it, cool right?! 

ICE in ice :)

I soon understood that we were not only going to taste ICE but also five additional whiskies from HP. The line-up consisted of 12yo, Dark Origins, 18yo, Harald, and Sigurd (followed by ICE). In my opinion, Dark Origins definitely kicked the living crap out of the other four first whiskies. (ICE did the same with the entire line-up!). 

the line-up of the evening!

Guiding us through the tasting and the release event, of course was non other than the very entertaining and highly knowledgeable Senior Brand Ambassador, Martin Markvardsen. 

Martin Markvardsen

The info on ICE that I received during the tasting was as follows: 

Yes, it has an age statement; 17yo, but moving all the way up 19yo. The strenght is 53,9% ABV (vatting strength rather than cask strength). ICE has been fully matured in firstfill bourbon casks, namely 250 litre hogsheads that has been rebuilt from 200 litre barrels. AND (!) the ends/lids of the casks consist of new american oak. Here in Sweden, 1400 bottles (out of 30k worldwide) will be released this Thursday at the swedish state monopoly (direct link here). It will cost 1999kr (approximately 200 euros). 

Martin and I after the tasting

Those of you following my facebook-page, know that I at the night of the event posted my quite brief tasting notes. Since I received a little goodiebag contatining a sample of ICE

and given the fact that some time has passed and the release here in Sweden is getting closer, I decided that it was time to do a second, in-depth tasting and share these impressions with you dear friends and followers. So here we go!

Nose:

The thing that first appears on the nose is that ICE is very, very, very rich on fruits. First and foremost ”tropical” fruits, in this case being peach (peach jellycandy), passionfruit, lemon and lime, even lemon jucie and/or lemon curd. We also have some really floral stuff. There’s also red apples and a slight touch of very ripe pear. Below the fruity layer is quite a big whiff of vanilla, light honey and also some almond paste. I would’nt say that there is much peat though, if there is peat in there, i’d say it’s presenting itself as something quite distant/fleeing, maybe moving towards leaves and bog, the early stages of autumn… very intriguing nose, a great experience just to nose this one in fact… (mmm, dreaming away…). But, I have to taste it of course!

Palate:

Begins very sugar-y-sweet, fruity (peaches and overripe banana) and vanilla for less than a second. Then everything indeed does explode! First into big, big, almond paste, nutty-ness (or rather ”almond-ness”), then very quickly comes some really green and bold herbs, and finally, what I’ve been waiting for, the PEAT! A very dry peat, drawing on gunpowder, peatbog, a medium big body/base. It really fills up your mouth. There is quite a lot of a ”strong” and powerful alcohol character in this phase of the palate, very mature/grown up, wow! In the aftertaste we have milk chocolate, warm vanilla and slight traces of coffee. Also, my mouth is watering although everthing is very dry towards the end…

an actual bottle of ICE!

To sum up: 

The nose does not at all reveal the power that is about to hit you on the palate! The explosion of tastes on the palate kind of sneeks up on you. All in all a really interesting dram that shows two very, very different sides of what Highland Park is or can be all about! A great dram for sure! Big thanks to Martin and to the nice people at Edrington for inviting me to attend this release event, and for the goodie bag! 

fellow blogger David (Tjeders Whisky), myself,
Emma from swedish whisky magazine "Allt om Whisky", and Martin

Copyright © and All Rights Reserved on all tasting notes by SamuelWhisky and pictures likewise belong to SamuelWhisky unless stated. If you would like to use any such material that belongs to SamuelWhisky or associated with SamuelWhisky, please ask by sending me an email to samuelkarlssonorebro@gmail.com

copyright of this pic belongs to Highland Park