Highland Park 10yo
Official Release | 40% ABV
Score: 5/10
Average. In a good way.
TL;DR
Very pleasant for what it is, and better than you think
Hear me out.
When I got seriously into whisky during lockdown, for a few years people had already been lamenting the Viking turn in Highland Park’s 2018 rebrand.
I wasn’t in the whisky neighbourhood when Michael Jackson deemed Highland Park 12 the “great all rounder.” I’d read that in some of my early malty reading, but that seemed to clash with what seemed to be the newer consensus that the famous 12 year old had become a bit watered down around the time of the rebrand.
And then there was the rebrand itself. I don’t have figures on Highland Park sales or profit, but five years on from the rebrand there has not been a drastic turnaround by owners Edrington Group so one could probably safely conclude that it seems to be going well enough. Supermarket shelves, specialist shops, online, Highland Park seems as ubiquitous as it ever was, if not more so.
Yet, among enthusiasts, Highland Park doesn’t get talked about that much. The low ABV for the core range doesn’t help: 40% for today’s 10 year old, and 43% for the 18 year old, which is a crime worthy of being tied to an Orkney post to be eaten alive by midges (for non-Scottish friends; behold the horror).
And then there’s the marketing. I won’t rant about Vikings, as you’ve heard it before. Marketing, as I understand it, is meant to attract potential buyers to a brand. However, it can also have the opposite effect of driving away potential buyers. The association with Aston Martin turns me off Bowmore. I’m probably a bit more amenable to a Viking raid than an Aston Martin car show, as I’m probably less fussed about Vikings than others. But, the Highland Park branding puts me off for a much more practical reason: it’s hard to know where to start with Highland Park.
Here in the UK there’s the 10 year old (replacing the 12yo), the 18yo, and the 25yo, but there’s also others that are hard to place. Take the Dragon Legend, a common sight in UK supermarkets, NAS and bottled at 43.1%. There’s little about cask information on the box other than a statement about being matured in ex-sherry casks and the website says “a higher proportion of Orkney peated malt.” I get that this is a supermarket whisky, but where does it sit relative to the 10 or the 12? Viking Scars, Viking Honour, Viking Heart, Viking Pride, Spirit of the Bear, Loyalty of the Wolf, Wings of the Eagle, Poo of the Seagull.
It’s a bit of work to place these relative to each other, to find out different cask makeups, or decipher why they all seem to have different ABVs. And, with so much whisky to choose from, I’m not really inclined to do the work necessary to find out.
Despite its most recent branding manifestation, Highland Park distillery itself still commands respect as one of the oldest official distilleries in Scotland, and there seems to be little doubt about the quality of Orcadian spirit made up there in the North Sea. Indie Highland Parks have a high reputation and are often much sought after – just check out the auction demand.
Surprisingly, we haven’t reviewed much official Highland Park here. Broddy reviewed the Cask Strength Batch 1 edition last year and gave it a favourable score, and there have been a few indie reviews but none of the other core range has gotten much attention here.
I’ve been on a loose kick lately of visiting entry-level malts that I skipped out on early in my journey. In June I shared my thoughts about Johnnie Walker Green, and today I turn to this Highland Park 10. I saw this on offer in my local shop for £30, so I took a punt on it.
Review
Highland Park 10yo, Official Release, natural colour,40% ABV
~£38, regularly on offer for £30 (paid)
Score: 5/10
Average. In a good way.
TL;DR
Very pleasant for what it is, and better than you think
Nose
Malty and very gentle smoke. Faint but pleasant sherry cask influence. Floral, lightly honeyed, light fruit. A light wisp of vanilla.
Palate
Gentle oak spice, lightly honeyed and gentle smoke in the background. Malty and oilier than I expected at 40%. Very pleasant texture and mouthfeel for this ABV. The sherry cask influence and maltiness complement each other very well. A bit of saltiness on the palate that didn’t appear on the nose. The Orkney peat, from Hobbister Moor a few miles from the distillery, is light but very distinct from peat elsewhere in Scotland. Everything is nicely balanced here.
The Dregs
I’m enjoying this and surprisingly so. Staying mostly at 46% or above these days, I don’t have many 40% bottles in my collection. I went for this to get to know the distillery house style before I try the cask strength or indies, and was simply curious to get to know the current output of this seminal distillery.
Picking it up off a supermarket shelf, I wasn’t expecting much, but this is quite nice for what it is. I’ve scored this a 5, but it’s a high 5. The flavours, the texture, the nose – everything is wonderfully balanced here with nothing overwhelming anything else. This is in fact nice enough that it makes me curious about what else Highland Park has to offer, beyond the Vikings.
This isn’t going to blow your socks off but if you’re looking for a break from the cask strength stuff or something easy enough, this is a cut above your other supermarket 40% bottles - and might challenge you to reconsider what you thought you knew about this one. It’s certainly made me reconsider what I thought I knew about releases at 40% ABV.
Score: 5/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. DD
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