Highland Park Valknut (Viking Legends 2018) 70cl

Another Viking Legend has arrived from Highland Park! The second release in the series created in partnership with Danish designer Jim Lyngvild is Valknut. The spirit used for this single malt features a small portion of Orkney-grown Tartan barley, and was matured predominantly in American oak sherry seasoned casks. Slightly smokier than your standard Highland Park whisky, so if you like a peaty treat, you've found a great option right here.

Highland Park remains the most northerly whisky distillery in Scotland, although not by much, as it is little more than a stone's throw from fellow Orcadian, Scapa. Accounts of the distillery's genesis vary, and the truth is probably lost to the mists of time, but it is thought that a local farmer named David Robertson founded what we now know as Highland Park distillery in 1798, on the site of an illicit still operated by nefarious smuggler (and former priest) Magnus Eunson.

Since its introduction as a single malt in the late 1970s, the distillery has been awarded many plaudits, not least of which came from the late, great whisky writer Michael Jackson, who called it “the greatest all rounder in the world of whisky”. It's characteristic style coming from the use of Sherry casks, along with an often cited heathery sweetness imparted to the spirit by way of the distinct Orcadian peat used during the malting process.

This is the second in a series of three special Viking Legend releases.

The Valknut symbol of three interlinked triangles was used in Norse mythology to represent honourable warriors killed in battle, and appears on the first of the four Stora Hammars stones and the picture stone at Tängelgårda in Gotland, Sweden, both significant Nordic monuments.

Tasting Notes

46.8% ABV

70cl