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Price drop: An exclusive 18-year-old single cask from one of the whisky world’s wildest refuges – Highland Park

From the Orkney Islands distillery comes a single cask, single malt with exemplary pedigree and outstanding flavour – and a price drop

Located in the town of Kirkwall, the capital of Orkney’s largest island (also known as the mainland to locals), Highland Park is a distillery of prestige. Its owners, Edrington, are rarely behind the curve when it comes to giving whisky brands room to grow. One of the most-coveted whisky brands in the world is already in Edrington’s stable – The Macallan – while another sibling in the group - the Glenrothes - is steadily gathering pace in Highland Park’s wake. 

Ambition

Undoubtedly, Edrington has the ambition as well as the resources to make Highland Park a global name, but in doing so, it is holding fast to the island distillery’s home place. If ever a whisky was truly rooted in its environment, then Highland Park is it, and the brand’s latest global advertising campaign, Different by Nature, featuring local residents and distillery staff, reflects this well (pictured below).  

Located in a cluster of 70 islands, some 19 km (around 12 miles) from the Scottish mainland, it’s a hive of rugged coastline, wild environments, megalithic tombs, and ancient peat bogs. For a product so deeply attached to wood, Highland Park makes its whisky in a place where trees struggle to grow. The wind runs so harshly across these islands that the peat bogs are devoid of wood, their layers of rich sediment driven instead by generations of heather and other flora that have decayed and slowly turned into the lifeforce of Highland Park’s peated whisky. 

515 Bottles

This exemplary bottle is one of only 515 released, each created as an exclusive collaboration between Highland Park Distillery and the Single Malt Shop. Distilled in 2002, it was matured in a refill butt and bottled in 2021 at 57.4% ABV.

This stunning release from the Orkney Islands’ distillery matured for 18 years in a refill sherry-seasoned European oak cask. Hand-selected by master whisky maker Gordon Motion, its goal was to amplify and perfect the signature flavour of the Highland Park range. 

Complex finish

On the nose, you’ll discover sweet, toasted oak, vanilla fudge and roast almonds. This leads to a palette rich in cinnamon, spice and sweet floral peat and a wonderfully complex finish. This rich and elegant pour is an outstanding chapter in the Highland Park story.

This exclusive edition is built entirely from the DNA of the Orkney whisky maker, but for this single cask release, it’s dialled up to the max. The 18 years the spirit spent in its refill sherry cask have created a sweet and balanced dram, but with a slight hint of smoke woven through its layers. The sherry element also drives dark fruit into the glass, gifting a wonderfully dark gold colour that elevates the pour. 

Reviewers have scored this hugely limited whisky highly, with Sweden’s WhiskySaga giving the 18-year-old a score of 90/100 in its much sought-after reviews.