Highland Park 18 YO

Highland Park 18-Year-Old

With a design that reflects the heritage of Orkney, the bottle contains a wonderfully complex and multi-layered whisky. Winner of many awards and often hailed as one of the best 18-year-old whiskies available.

Highland Park 18 is a wonderful single malt that pays tribute to the wild location of its home distillery. Located in the Orkney Islands in the far north of Scotland, it is widely considered to be one of the best single malt core bottlings in the Scottish whisky landscape.

Highland Park whisky is produced using peat from the Orkneys and matured in European and American oak. These include sherry seasoned puncheons and hogshead casks.

What does Highland Park 18 year old taste like?

Part of the Viking Pride series, this 18-year-old single malt pays tribute to its Orkney home in both flavour and personality. With aromatic peat smoke and lots of floral notes on the nose, its aroma matches its time spent in mature oak.

This is a rich and woody single malt with lots of sweet marzipan, bittersweet cocoa and a high proportion of heathered honey notes on the palate. The finish is equally rich and long-lasting with a spicy element that is complemented by Orkney’s salty seaspray signature notes.

Highland Park distillery has been operating in the town of Kirkwell for more than 220 years. It’s a very special distillery that relies as much as it can on the island’s own resources, including using its own island peat. It operates four stills, two wash stills and two spirit stills.

Highland Park 18 is no stranger to awards season. It was named Best Spirit in the World by Spirit Journal as well as taking gold at the Scotch Whisky Masters and at the 2021 International Spirits Challenge.

Matured in first-fill sherry-seasoned American and European oak casks it has gathered a flavour profile that allows it to stand out among its peers. Its makers herald flavours such as bursting overripe cherries, aromatic smoke and freshly harvested honeycomb as being the core drivers of this excellent heather honey single malt

The Edrington Group

Highland Park Distillery is owned today by the Edrington Group. This is a Glasgow-based drinks conglomerate that also owns The Macallan and The Glenrothes, among others. With such prestigious brands already in their stable, there is undoubtedly huge ambition for Highland Park too.

Hobbington Moor

The peat used in Highland Park whisky is from Hobbington Moor. It is hand cut to protect the moor’s lifespan and the peat they harvest is created by the wild conditions of the island. Very few trees exist on Orkney because the winds that whip across the landscape are so intense that they uproot many of the young saplings that begin to grow. The peat is primarily composed of decaying matter from smaller ground-hugging plants such as heather, grasses and wildflowers.

This rich and floral peat helps to create the signature and gentle peat smoke elements in Highland Park whisky and especially for the 18-year-old. It brings a truly local floral heather honey note as well as a unique flavour profile from its Spanish and American oak casks.

The 18-year-old’s tasting notes reveal just how luxurious and complex the whisky is. It carries a burnished gold colour that is entirely natural and fits beautifully within the malt whisky category. Fans celebrate its unusual character with its ripe cherries dusted with bitter dark chocolate and candied orange peel, combining to create a sophisticated medley of flavours with no rough edges.