Highland Park

There is honesty in Highland Park. It is a whisky, which exudes balance and complexity in every glass. It is not about fashion, trends or bandwagons. Highland Park is made today with the same enduring belief and integrity, to the same exacting standards, as it always has been. This approach accounts for the appeal of Highland Park, which is now respected by whisky lovers as one of the greatest single malts in the world. This appreciation is based on an unbroken tradition of whisky-making stretching back at Highland Park to 1798.

Each of Highland Park’s award-winning whiskies is crafted to reveal its own distinctive character but still carries the same DNA of the uniquely complex balance of flavours for which these whiskies are known. A wild harmony of heather honey, rich fruitcake, and aromatic peat smoke.

Highland Park have maintained the same five keystones of production since 1798, requiring fierce determination, hard work and skill. Just the way they like it.

The process begins with turning the malt by hand. When the barley is malting, it generates heat as starch turns into sugar. It is painstakingly turned by had every eight hours, seven days a week to ensure a constant airflow and exactly the right amount of moisture (5%) until the intense aromatic smoke – the ‘reek’ of the hobbister moor peat smouldering in the ancient kilns – is fully absorbed.

Up to 60% of Highland Park’s final flavour comes from the finest sherry seasoned oak casks used for maturation. Working in partnership with fully managed forests, they select wood from European and American oak trees, cut into staves at precisely 45° to make it hard for any spirit to escape. This same method is how the vikings made their longships watertight.

The staves are shipped to Jerez in Southern Spain to be made into casks, filled with Spanish sherry and left to mature for around two years, before they are emptied and shipped back to Orkney to be filled with new make spirit fresh from the stills.