This Highland Park is a bottling of whisky on Spanish sherry casks and hence often considered to be the opposite of the Leif Eriksson, which matured wholly on bourbon casks. Drakkar is Nors for dragon head, referring to the prow of the famous Viking ship. It was, according to Gerry Tosh, not colored. It was launched in December 2011 for the duty free range. The legs in the glass come down very, very slowly.
The nose is immediately very sweet with hints of raisins, dades, prunes, figs… you get the picture: sherry cask. But still this HP remains rather grainy and is clearly pretty young. I am reminded of porridge of oats. Quite a bit of caramel and honey. Not bad, but not earth shattering either.
It is nicely mouth coating, again on dark fruit, but turns very dry all of a sudden. Too dry to my taste. Honey, vanilla and a leaf of mint. Heather and even some lavender.
The finish is more than okay. Classic smoky finish, medium long.
Well, this is a rather everyday aperitif by Highland Park, which struggles to compete with their regular standard expressions. Around 40 EUR. Thanks, Manny, for the sample.
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