Highland Park Batch #3 Cask Strength Single Malt Scotch Whisky

A blend of 115 barrels that, like other Highland Park bottlings, was harmonized (blended together) in a vat and left there over the course of several months. Normally Highland Park is 80/20 unpeated and peated barley, though this batch feels like it has a higher percentage of peated barley versus the norm. In chats with Edrington and our own taste palates, this feels to be in the 9-12 year old range, with specifics not being shared by the distillery. The nose shows an initial hit of peat with spice, golden raisin, sea spray, pecan, and a touch of high proof alcohol. The palate has a great sense of texture with caramel, pepper, dried fruits, and a sweet candied note. (Responses ranged from boiled sweets to fluf ernutter to funnel cakes depending on our tasters family origin.) Enjoy!

The history of Highland Park, as claimed above the gate, began in 1798. The problem with that statement is that there is a distinct half truth to that as a starting point. There once was a freelance priest (not ordained) by the name of Magnus Eunson that was caught illegally distilling on the site that would become Highland Park in the 1790s. Charges against him were dropped and his time with this tale ends. What we can say is that the farmer David Robertson purchased the High Park estate in 1798 and seemed to run a legally acceptable distillery on the site.

In 1816, a syndicate that included former excise officers John Robertson and Robert Pringle bought the site of the distillery and went about formalizing operations. John Robertson was the arresting officer of Magnus Eunson, so this feels somewhat like insider trading. The syndicate built the stone buildings making up the edifice in 1818, that exists to this day. The distillery of Kirkwall went completely legal in 1826 when John Borwick applied for a license under the newly passed Excise Act, and the Borwick clan ran the distillery for a handful of generations.

Highland Park really started to come into its own in the late 1800s when James Grant (previously The Glenlivet’s manager) along with some business partners took over the distillery. It was James who expanded the distillery from two stills to four and solidified what Highland Park’s style would be. For the better part of a century, the distillery has been under the ownership and control of first Highland Distillers and their corporate successor The Edrington Group. Michael Kennel, D&M