STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART

The newest addition to our core range, 15 Year Old, is an absolute must-have this festive season. With its beautiful ceramic bottle and spectacular flavour profile – a wild harmony of cinnamon-charred pineapple, vanilla sponge cake, heather honey and mellow peat smoke - it makes both a great gift and an elegant centrepiece for your table.

This wonderfully complex single malt opens with rich and spicy aromas of crème brûlée, heather honey and crumbled cinnamon followed by intensely fruity notes of fresh pineapple with a scattering of lemon zest. You’ll find warm hints of freshly-baked sponge cake and toasted shards of cinnamon packed in there too – delicious! There’s something very festive about Viking Heart’s flavour profile, inspiring us to not only suggest enjoying it with a sweet mince pie… but to make it the star ingredient of home-made ones too. 

MOUTH-WATERING MINCE PIES

Ingredients

200g raisins
400g currants
100ml Highland Park 15 Year Old
Zest of 1 lemon
Zest of 1 clementine
Juice of ½ lemon
300g vegetarian shredded suet
250g dark brown sugar
85g chopped mixed peel
½ small nutmeg, grated
1 large Bramley apple, peeled and grated
500g pack of sweet shortcrust pastry
1 beaten egg

Method

1. To make the sweet mincemeat filling, soak the raisins and currants in the whisky, lemon and clementine juice for one hour, until plumped up. Then add in all the other ingredients and mix well. Spoon into sterilised jars (run them through a dishwasher on its hottest setting), press down firmly, cover and leave for at least two weeks to allow the favours to develop. 

2. When you’re ready to make the pies, heat your oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Now lightly butter and flour the moulds of a 12-cup muffin or cupcake tin. Roll out the sweet shortcrust pastry to half a centimetre thick and, using a pastry cutter slightly bigger than the moulds, line each mould with a circle of pastry, pushing it up the mould to come over the sides. This makes the bottom of the pies.

3. Now spoon in the mincemeat and, using the same cutter, make lids big enough to cover the pies and press the edges gently together to seal – you don’t need to use milk or egg as they will stick on their own. 

4. Finally brush the tops of the pies with the beaten egg and bake for 20 minutes until golden. Leave to cool in the tin for 5 mins, then remove to a wire rack. To serve, lightly dust with the icing sugar. 

Trouble finding 15 Year Old online? Check out our list of stockists.