Viking Soul – Whisky Is The Limit
Cask 500146 – Bottle #10 / 59
56.7% ABV
12 years and a half
Regular 12 years old (vatted 58%) extra aged in white oak Sherry Firkin cask
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By now, y’all should know about Highland Park. If you don’t, please start by reading reviews of their core line here, here and there !
Now, on to the story behind this bottle ! In 2018, Highland Park offered the chance to a few lucky aficionados to bottle their own private cask But instead of paying huge money and just wait for an uncertain result, they took their classic and mostly liked 12 years old and they extra aged it in either Firkin or Quarter casks for 6 months.
This process allows the whisky to interact more with the wood and the Sherry content, thus providing a “faster” aging (the smaller the cask, the more interactions, the more the whisky will absorbs the flavours).
It was then bottled cask strength and shipped to the owner.
This ballot was hugely popular, and fortunately for me, a friend got a hold on a cask. Salim is the guy behind Whisky Is The Limit. He has started in the industry as a private tasting Maestro and is now in contact with several brand ambassadors and organizes a lot of events in Switzerland !
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Colour : light golden brown.
Nose : honeyed nuts, fresh dates, slight citrus, a little heather peat.
Palate : peat comes stronger first with macadam nuts, then comes dark chocolate, fresh prunes and dried figs. Third wave is all spices with cinnamon and cardamome. Texture is silky rather than oily.
Finish : peat and spices on the forefront. Really warming, more than I expected. Goes down fast but the after taste is long and long and long.
Comments : WOW 😍 This is the kind of twist I like to see from HP ! Flavours are well defined yet they have a nice interaction between them, with none taking the upper hand. Traditional flavours are there but on steroids, while adding some new ones.
I liked the Twisted Tattoo enough, the DO was great, the Full Volume was excellent, and the single casks can vary a lot. But I’d like to see HP do more bottlings like that : taking a beloved “unexpensive” expression and giving it a twist, either with a smaller cask or less used cask. I’d gladly pay extra money to have those !
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Congrats Salim on your first private cask ! It did not disappoint, and I’m glad I was the first to register to your WITL club and got the first bottle to cross the ocean 🙂