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Highland Park’s New Bottle and Viking Branding

By on April 27, 2017 in News, Single Malt Whisky

The magnificent single malt whisky of Highland Park will now be served from a new bottle

Designed to evoke Orkney’s Norse heritage, the core range 12 year-old expression is now titled Viking Honour.

Highland Park 12 new bottle Viking

New Name, Same Excellent Whisky

The name added to Highland Park’s traditional 12 year-old age statement single malt and the embossed glass relief imagery on its new bottle, hark back to an imagined history much older than the Victorian era suggested by the bottle it is replacing.

It will also be used for their European market 10 year-old, now named Viking Scar. The fabulous 18 year-old expression will be getting the new bottle and the name Viking Pride, later this year.

The previous, quasi-nineteenth century bottle of elegant understated design will be missed. But the folks at Highland Park felt it looked too much like a bottle of American bourbon. And that is exactly what I thought when it first appeared, before I got used to it and came to like it.

Although it was hardly traditional, I very much loved the bottle that held Highland Park when I discovered the singular spirit in my earliest drinking days, which had a map of the Orkney Islands embossed on the bottom of its base.

Highland Park bottles old and older Viking

The soon to be retired bottle with the one that came before it.

Forward into the Past

The new bottle is quite lovely to look at, with a new line that is not radically different from its predecessor, and the artwork was inspired by the impressive iconographs decorating a church in Norway believed to be from about 1130, and now an official UNESCO World Heritage site.

Highland Park borrows from Viking urnes-church-iconographyWhile some say this is the Lion of Christ defeating Satan in serpent form, it looks to me more like hound or possibly a horse, and I will not be surprised if HP’s modern day lore masters declare the serpents to be wyrms aka wingless dragons known to inhabit those parts back in the day.

Orkney was a Norwegian Earldom for centuries, which evolved from the original Viking settlers who either transplanted or intermarried with the Pictish occupants living there since the late Bronze Age. The islands were not ceded to the King of Scotland until the 1400s, as partial payment for a broken marriage agreement between the two kingdoms, something that happened quite often between Scotland and Norway in the medieval times. I mean the marriages between the Scottish and Norwegian royal families, not the broken engagements.

So the new bottle, and Highland Park’s brand revamping to focus on all things Viking isn’t just coming from the drawing board of some Aldwych and Kingsway ad exec. It comes directly from the rich and often turbulent history of Orkney itself.

The best news, for me, about all this, is that the core range of Highland Park expressions is remaining single malt whisky aged entirely in sherry barrels.

But outside the core range they are introducing exciting expressions that combine sherry-aged Highland Park with HP from American bourbon barrels, and two new expressions made entirely from ex-bourbon barrels!

Highland Park is adapting their looks and legends while looking progressively to the future and making the best of it they can.

And that is one man’s word on …

Highland Park’s New Bottle and Viking Branding

Other Reading:

Highland Park – Big Changes Ahead in 2017 – new expressions in a new look

Highland Park Valkyrie Expression in the New Viking Legend Series

Official UNESCO Urnes Stave Church Registry Page

Our HP Reviews

Highland Park Dark Origins

Highland Park 12

Highland Park 30

Highland Park’s Valkyrie Expression and the New Viking Legends Series

By on April 27, 2017 in News, Single Malt Whisky

The tasteful new Highland Park Valkyrie bottle was created in partnership with Jim Lyngvild

The Danish fashion designer specializes in Viking-inspired looks, while also creating authentic, historically accurate Viking clothing. His endeavors include helping to create skin care products using natural Scandinavian ingredients. and a beer that used Highland Park whisky as one of its ingredients.

Highland Park Valkyrie appeared before the faithful at Whisky Live! London, earlier this month.

Highland Park Valkyrie at Whisky Live London

photo: whiskeyjack.net

There are two other Viking Legends expressions on the calendar for 2018/19, named Valknut and Valhalla.

Sometimes kindly described as Viking angels, the Valkyries were supernatural female spirits who decided which Viking warriors would die in battle, and escorted certain chosen ones to Valhalla, the feasting hall of the God Odin, where the Valkyries serve them mead until they are called to the last battle at the end of the world.

While it might be said that Highland Park single malt Scotch whisky has some heathery honeyed notes, it is a long way from meade. And this new Valkyrie expression kicking of the Viking Legends Series may be even farther from it, since it is reputed to be peatier and smokier than most Highland Park.

The bottle Lyngvild designed is not embossed like the new bottle being used for HP’s core age statement expressions. But they share the same silhouette, while Valkyrie’s label and carton reflect Viking artwork and literary sagas, including the stylized Valkyrie on the box, which resembles talisman pendents from Norse jewelry made between the third to the seventh century CE, which include Valkyries as a common theme.

Viking Valkyrie Pendants Highland Park Viking Legends

As for the whisky itself, it is bottled at 45.9% ABV and comes from a combination of sherry barrels made of European oak, sherry barrels of American oak, and American Bourbon barrels, which HP has been incorporating into the various exotic expressions among the No Age Statement whiskies with names taken from Norse gods and legendary Viking heroes.

Official Distillery Tasting Notes

Nose: Sharp tang of sweet green apples and ripening lemons.

Palate: A bewitching mix of oriental spices. Driven by European Oak sherry seasoned casks, American Oak sherry-seasoned casks and Bourbon casks, the flavour profile is creamy vanilla with spicy, sweet, preserved ginger and lingering smokiness with hints of liquorice.

Finish: Exquisitely balanced, the long and lingering finish delivers waves of warm aromatic smoke and richly ripened fruit.

Whisky.com quotes HP’s Jason Craig as saying Valkyrie “dials up more of our smoky notes by incorporating more of our heathery peated malt… This creates a richer, fuller phenolic note that has balance due to the sweeter, heathery character of our moorland peat, but it is a slight departure from our core 12-year-old whisky.”

Um, yeah, if you can call adding whisky aged in bourbon casks into a bottle of Highland Park a “slight departure,” which is something I certainly cannot do, because it is a major departure with serious implications of the endangerment of classic Highland Park, which is aged entirely in sherry casks.

Don’t Panic!

My personal copy of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy states as fact that the core age statement HP expressions are remaining all-sherry for now. I just get a little uneasy when marketing speak implies that bourbon barrel Highland Park in core range expressions would somehow not qualify as a radical abandonment of HP tradition, because it sounds too much like an attempt at grooming the public to accept such a departure in the future.

And whilst the future may indeed dictate such a change, no matter how much HP tries to conjure up a mythic Scandinavian past, I will not go gently into any such good night and shall put up a fight worthy of a one-way ticket to Odin’s mead hall.

And that is one man’s word on…

Highland Park’s Valkyrie expression and the New Viking Legends Series

Highland Park’s New Bottle for the Core Range

Highland Park – Big Changes Ahead in 2017 – other new expressions and the brand identity

Official UNESCO Urnes Stave Church Registry Page

Our HP Reviews

Highland Park Dark Origins

Highland Park 12

Highland Park 30

Highland Park – Big Changes Ahead in 2017

By on April 27, 2017 in News, Single Malt Whisky

Highland Park Fans take notice of the big changes happening at Scotland’s northernmost distillery, in the Orkney Islands.

There is good news and there is bad news

Highland Park bids farewell to some core range expressions, and launches new expressions outside the core range, including the new Viking Legend Series, part of their revamped image announced today, which is inspired by Orkney’s Viking era during the Dark Ages circa the year 800 CE.

The Bad News

Highland Park 15 is discontinued. Fans will want to budget accordingly and scour the shop shelves. Made with a higher percentage of sherry casks made from American oak, it has a sweeter taste with notable flavors of mango and other tropical fruits.

Dark Origins is also discontinued. It had been the first No Age Statement expression in HP’s core range. Including a higher percentage of first-fill sherry casks made from European oak, some re-charred, this expression is smokier than other HP and has a more-savory character overall.

[UPDATE May 21, 2017: And perhaps the worst news of all, Highland Park 21 is is also missing from their brand new website.]*

The Good News

The folks at Highland Park have the good taste to leave alone the great taste inherent to the rest of their core age statement expressions! And there was much rejoicing – yea.

In fact a new 50 yo will be appearing in the next year or two.

Highland Park makes their classic core range whiskies from 100% single malt whisky aged entirely in sherry casks, and thus they shall remain, according to my sources.

But the core range expressions are getting a new bottle, with a somewhat different shape and embossed glass relief designs inspired by the twelfth century iconography on the famous stave church at Ornes (Urnes,) Norway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Martin Markvardsen Senior Brand Ambassador for HP is quoted by Imbibe as saying “What we heard about the old bottle is that it looked a bit like a bourbon.” That is something I recognized the moment it first appeared on the market, before I got used to it and came to like it. He went on to say, “I think the new bottling and positioning will stand out well and look like a (Scotch) whisky.”

The important part in all of this is that the newly christened 10 yo Viking Scars (not available in the USA,) 12 yo Viking Honour, and 18 yo Viking Pride have been promised to stay the same incomparable Highland Park we all have come to depend upon. The 18 yo will now be made two batches per year, the first dated February 2017.

It is just the Highland Park brand that has taken on a new look and language to imbue its image with Orkney’s ancient Viking past.

This is not just about evocative advertising in the drinks industry. The trend in Scotland toward a national identity separate from that of the rest of the UK has revived old sentiments suggesting the culture of the Scottish Highlanders has more in common with Norway and the rest Scandinavia, than with their English and Welsh cousins to the south. And the Orkney Islands have always had considerable Scandinavian connections, belonging to Norway until the 1400s.

Besides, who doesn’t stir with some romantic attachment to the idea of intrepid Viking explorers and the brave and hearty people who sent them out on their legendary adventures?

New Ways to Experience Highland Park

Full Volume and Valkyrie

As for the new expressions, the soon-to-be-missed 15 will be replaced later this summer, by something called Full Volume, which has a marketing spin of comparing a whisky blender’s flavor engineering to an audio engineer’s mixing of music. It is made entirely from Highland Park aged in American bourbon barrels. Bottled at at 47.2% ABV, HP Full Volume will cost about £75 per bottle.

Full Volume will fit in between the 18 yo core expression and the newly released Valkyrie expression, which is launching the new Viking Legend Series, while also replacing Dark Origins, at least in the minds of Highland Park management. Where Dark Origins was smokier than other Highland Park, Valkyrie is officially peatier.

But unlike Dark Origins and the age statement expressions in the core range, Valkyrie has bourbon barrels involved, along with sherry barrels of European and American oak. The official line stresses the latter as a tie-in with traditional HP, but the published tasting notes, of lemons with vanilla and spicy sweet preserved ginger, suggests the former is prominently featured.

It was reputedly distilled in 1999 and bottled in 2017, at 45.9%, but Valkyrie does not have an age statement. This might be to avoid having to re-label future bottles, should some younger spirit get mixed into later editions. Or it is simply that is the way HP does their non-core range expressions.

There are two other expressions scheduled in this Viking Legends Series over the next two years, named Valknut and Valhalla.

All-Bourbon HP for Bourbon’s Homeland

Mangus

There is also an all-bourbon barrel Highland Park heading to the American market called Mangus, which is sadly bottled at 40%, but happily priced well under $50. Mangus was the name of both the King of Norway and the King of Sweden at the same time that stave church was being built. But it does not distract from the fact it is much more about America in its creation than anything to do with Vikings. But the same can be said for all of those special edition whiskies HP has been coming out with for years.

As I just said to a friend last night, Highland Park should feel free to follow industry trends and come up with all the expressions they can that utilize bourbon casks, virgin oak, or oak seasoned by other wines or spirits, put them in various bottles and wooden cradles and charge a Viking’s ransom for them, if they can get away with it – if that is what it will take to insure that my beloved all-sherry-all-the-time Highland Park bottled with guaranteed age statements will continue unmolested into the foreseeable future and remain available for those who know it and love it so well.

*If they have discontinued Highland Park 21, arguably the most fresh and intensely flavorful expression of their core range, it would be a tragedy indeed, and a crime if it is not longer being made to make room for one of their newfangled non-traditional expressions.

And that is one man’s word on…

Highland Park – Big Changes Ahead in 2017

Highland Park banner

Further Reading:

Highland Park’s New Bottle for the Core Range

Highland Park Valkyrie Expression in the New Viking Legend Series

Official UNESCO Urnes Stave Church Registry Page

Our HP Reviews

Highland Park Dark Origins

Highland Park 12

Highland Park 30

 

Highland Park’s new website design has launched!

Rarest Whiskies for those with the Deepest Pockets

By on April 5, 2017 in Malt Porn, News

Six of the Rarest Scottish Whiskies in Living Color

Black Book (bbook.com) offers up some mouthwatering photography of six exceptionally rare Scotch whisky expressions.

Five of the six are single malts and one is a blend. All but one show age statements of 40 years old or older.

Terse tasting notes of the “rarest whiskies” give a tantalizing hint at what a price tag in the thousands could lead to for the discerning palate.

The lone no age statement single malt being Macallan’s M, from the 1824 Series, which was produced in 2013 from casks stretching back into the 1940s. Part of its high price comes from the Lalique crystal bottle, which is dwarfed by the auction price of a six-litre crystal decanter of the same stuff. The “normal” 750ml version can still be had in the U.S., for about $5,000 after taxes.

The list includes expressions from some of my all-time favorites, Highland Park, Ledaig, Balvenie, and Glenfarclas.

Rarest-Scotch-Whiskies-Glenfarclas-60

Most of my nose-on experience with high-end whisky tops out at 25 year age statements, but there have been some exceptions.

While I have yet to publish my review of the serenity in a whisky glass that is Balvenie 30, the most indulgent review I have published was for a most indulgent whisky, yet to be surpassed in my estimation, the Highland Park 30 from the 2013 bottling.

However, it comes nowhere near the prices of the whisky in the article, which you can check out HERE.

Broader Perspectives

And if you would like to read about more about some exceptionally rare and expensive whisky, this run down at moneyinc.com, which includes both whiskies in ultra-expensive decanters, and those costing a king’s ransom simply because of their rarity.

And here is a quick and easy list from winesearcher.com of “the most expensive whiskey” even if everything on the list is a whisky, and almost all of it comes from the extinct distillery of Port Ellen, on the Isle of Islay, or Brora, which existed in the town of the same name on the northeast coast of Scotland.

But another way to look at it is in terms of whisky as an investment tool. If that sounds interesting, you may want to give this article a read over at Australia’s ExecutiveStyle.com, which includes some relatively affordable malt whisky bottles, expected to rise high as their numbers dwindle.

Cheers!

Dark Origins Now Out of the Shadows

By on September 5, 2014 in Review, Single Malt Whisky

Highland Park’s new Dark Origins expression has hit American shores.

And while my review has many favorable things to say about the whisky itself, the packaging and marketing is a bit much.

Highland Park Dark Origins box review 1mansmalt.com

Out of the shadows and first fill sherry casks of European oak comes a mysterious no-age-statement expression, the first deemed worthy of Highland Park’s core range of classic single malt.

Having now tasted it, I am surprised they aren’t marketing it as a recreation of a pre-Prohibition version of Highland Park, due to the prominence of European oak, Oloroso sherry, and peat.

Instead, they have taken things further into the realm of romantic fantasyland when it comes to the packaging and the marketing that goes along with it.

The name Dark Origins is meant to harken back to the founder of the distillery, who was a clergyman by trade, while engaging in illicit whisky making before he was granted a legal license to distill in 1798.

I guess if Jameson’s PR folks can invent tall tales about their Kraken-slaying founder, Highland Park can turn theirs into a figure of manly mystery, whose secret dealings as a “dark distiller” is equated with defending the common folk of the Orkney Islands from “from the villainy of the tax collectors.”

Are your eyes rolling yet?

The Dark Origins box sports the image of said founder’s head partially obscured by a hooded cloak. He even has the stubble of a Hollywood action figure on his chiseled unshaven chin, ala Braveheart or Aragorn son of Arathorn. At least they left him off of the bottle, which is is also black and all done in silver writing.

Perhaps this Robin Hood vs. the tax collector slant is all a poke at the legal restrictions in Scotland that say thou shall not display an age statement on a bottle of whisky older than the youngest spirit contained therein. So the ages of the casks blended to create Dark Origins shall remain a mystery, and so will be the whisky itself, unless you buy it and free it from the obfuscation of the black bottle.

However, the use of the word “dark” also signifies the larger portion of the expression that was aged in first fill sherry casks – which is proven in the nose alone.

And while it is a bit darker than the 12 year old expression, and notably darker than the 15 year old, which is the closest to it in terms of price, the post-production enhancement of the “rich mahogany” color seen in the official video advertisement for Dark Origins, conveniently held up in front of a stained mahogany wall, bears no resemblance to what actually comes out of the bottle.

Hardly cricket, that. But at least they resisted any temptation to introduce caramel coloring, something Highland Park does not use, and hopefully never will.

I found the pale amber of the actual color, with its blackish accents, and rich golden highlights quite attractive, even if Dark Origins comes nowhere near the “rich mahogany” color of the 30 year old expression, which we tasted along side it.

The published wording (here as it actually appears on the box and bottle) is:

“DOUBLE first fill sherry casks for a DARKER richer flavour.”

At first that sounds as fine an example of marketing DOUBLE speak as I can remember. Double compared to what? They do not say. And how can a flavor be darker when light or its absence has no bearing on the senses of taste and smell?

But since I often use metaphors such as “dark” when trying to describe sound during many guitar reviews, I will grant them this allusion to a darker flavor.

In fairness, other marketing copy makes clear it has twice the first fill sherry casks involved than the standard 12 year old expression – and it certainly tastes like it. It is full of darker fruit like figs, prunes and cherries than the usual oranges and banana often floating around a glass of Highland Park, and the peat, both the green mulch and the smoke itself are also denser and pervasive. So dark isn’t such a bad metaphor for this spirit, since it is denser and more somber than typical HP.

And this branding of Highland Park Dark Origins is a good deal less brash than something like Talisker Storm, or the highland cow adorning Glen Scotia’s colorful if misguided packaging, the nouveau color schemes of Bruichladdich, or for that matter the over-the-top presentation of the new Mortlach line. It is hard to believe such displays actually bring in more sales than they discourage. But this sort of fanciful marketing seems to be trending, sad to say.

While its black bottle and action hero packaging is bit much, Highland Park’s tasty new Dark Origins expression fits more with the traditional distillery character than many of their other non-age-statement expressions, like those from their absurdly over-priced Valhalla series. But if they wish to use up their old bourbon casks and virgin oak casks in special editions to raise capital while saving their sherry casks for the core range, I am all for it!

Even if the fanciful packing might suggest otherwise, Dark Origins is well worth tracking down, and should be available across the U.S. very soon.

Highland Park Dark Origins review 1mansmalt.com

Read the Full Review

 

Diageo in the No-Age-Statement Era

By on July 29, 2014 in Article

Diageo in the No-Age-Statement Era of Malt Whisky

     What the New Mortloch Says

About Diageo’s Direction

Or

The Promise and Pitfalls of No-Age-Statement Mentality

As the largest Scotch malt whisky entity, Diageo has thrown its weight further into the no-age-statement arena with the launching of the new Mortlach Rare and Old.

(see our review HERE)

The rebranding of this classic, but obscure single malt has bellwether implications for the entire industry, as it moves away from traditional age statements, even as retail prices soar. And Diageo’s leadership role is once again on trial.

Read the Full Article

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