Highland Park Distillery, Orkney: The Northernmost of Them All

Overview

Highland Park, above Kirkwall on Orkney, is one of the most northerly distilleries in the world and one of the most admired. Its whisky is a beautifully balanced marriage of gentle heathery peat and rich sherry, made using a good deal of Orkney peat and some of its own floor-malted barley — and its Viking-themed presentation leans hard into the islands’ Norse past.

The history

Highland Park grew out of illicit distilling: tradition holds that its site, “High Park”, was worked by the smuggler and church officer Magnus Eunson, who is said to have hidden his whisky under the pulpit. The distillery went legal around 1798–1826 and has worked, more or less continuously, ever since — one of very few distilleries to keep its own working floor maltings. It is now a flagship malt of Edrington.

The water & the land

Highland Park’s water is Cattie Maggie’s Spring, on the hillside beside the distillery above Kirkwall — hard water, pumped up to the stills — while the peat it burns comes from Orkney’s own Hobbister Moor, giving a heather-and-honey smoke quite unlike Islay’s.

Here the honest answer is that there is no clan: Orkney was never Highland clan country. For centuries it was a Norse earldom, ruled from the great cathedral town of Kirkwall under the Norn-speaking Earls of Orkney, and only came to Scotland in 1468 as security for a Danish princess’s dowry. Highland Park’s Viking branding is, unusually, rooted in real island history rather than marketing invention.

Visiting

Highland Park has a modernised visitor centre and runs a range of experiences, from walk-in tasting flights up to in-depth tours — book the tours ahead. It generally opens Monday to Saturday, around 10–5; check the website. Combine it with a walk round Kirkwall’s magnificent St Magnus Cathedral.

Nearby & more whisky

• Orkney’s other distillery: Scapa
• Islands — the region overview
• The whole picture: Scotch whisky — regions, distilleries & the oldest of all

Sources

• Highland Park distillery — Wikipedia.
• Highland Park / Edrington; Undiscovered Scotland.