Review #108: Highland Park "Einar" NAS, 40% abv, OB

duty-free blogging

Duty-free kind of sucks. You end up having to go through extra security checks. The prices are worse than back home, and the special bottlings are mysterious and generally inferior. (I should put in a link about that.) Maybe this is just the result of my particular situation: buying in the UK in general is lousy -- it's a shame, really, that it's so expensive.

Anyway, sometimes you end up with some currency left over, and it's certainly better to pick up a bottle of Highland Park than to get a few post-commission dollars back. This one is part of the inscrutable "Warriors" series. As far as I can tell, the more you pay, the higher the ratio of Spanish oak to American oak. None of them have an age statement.

The whisky has a rich copper color that probably came out of a bottle.

Nose: Canned fruit in syrup and some stinky peat. The fruit is pleasantly rich -- mostly peaches and pears, I think. The official notes say "pineapple," but that seems aspirational to me. The peat is somewhere in between fresh stable and old ashtray, leaning toward the latter, so that's good. There's a bit of sulfur, but so little it works as a seasoning. There are some winey dried fruits, too, and dry oak spices. A little bare alcohol, too, but overall it feels older than it probably is.

Palate: Nice oily/syrupy texture. There's probably some alcohol in there, too, but it's hard to tell. The peat stings a little and there's some marshmallowy fruit, but otherwise very very little is happening.

Finish: It's probably better to just drink some more.


This goes down very easily, and has its interesting moments. I don't know why they bottled a liter at 40% instead of a decent strength in a 70cl or 75cl bottle, but maybe it's more drinkable this way. In any case, very well assembled from probably very young stocks, so not a total waste of money (about GBP 45). An easy, enjoyable dram.

score: 83

(I like it better than the 12yr, actually.)