Single Malts of Scotland
Distilled at An Orkney Distillery
Age: 11yo
Distilled: 2007
Bottled: 2020
Angel's share: 5,16%
Abv: 48% vol
Place of purchase: German shop
With this whisky, we need travel back to early January in 2021. I had just recovered from our 2020 whisky advent calendar and the idea was to have whisky free January (buying and drinking wise). With this new found whisky freedom, I was browsing some whisky websites (go figure) when I stumbled on to this review of this new SMoS Highland Park. This was in the lower price tier of our whiskey calendar and I just needed to purchase it.
Nose: Dark plum juice, raisins, herbs, coffee, dark chocolate, red berries, smoke, sherry and menthol. Really balanced and beautiful on the nose. Red christmas flavours nicely together with some smoke on the edges, telling you it's there, giving a little dirty tip for the nose, but doesn't overpower it in anyway.
Taste: Really sweet wave of red berries and raisins at first, but then the coffee shows up for the party and a small bitter dark note enters the palette. After a while the smoke comes in, but then the coffee and red berries have teamed up as a chocolate cherry and fights back the smoke
After: Smoky herbal notes are trying to take over, but the chocolate cherry fights back and they go back and forth until only smoky oakiness stays and slowly it fades away.
For me, this whisky says elegance. It's calm and prestige in a way you would expect from a lot older whisky. I feel, that this is a whisky that would be enjoeyd in a "gentleman's club", sitting in an fancy leather chairs and with a good cigar. This is a whisky, that needs time and it rewards you, if you do so.
This whisky was in our whisky advent calendar in 2021 and got positive feedback. The price point had already went way past 100€, so it wasn't cheap anymore :(