Highland Park – 17 Year Old The Dark (70cl, 52.9%)

Highland Park – 17 Year Old The Dark is a whisky from Highland Park (Islands). Aged 17 years, bottled at 52.9% ABV, 70cl. Highland Park remains the most northerly whisky distillery in Scotland, although not by much, as it is little more than a stone’s throw from fellow Orcadian, Scapa. Accounts of the distillery’s genesis vary, and the truth is probably lost to the mists of time, but it is thought that a local farmer named David Robertson founded what we now know as Highland Park distillery in 1798, on the site of an illicit still operated by nefarious smuggler (and former priest) Magnus Eunson. Since its introduction as a single malt in the late 1970s, the distillery has been awarded many plaudits, not least of which came from the late, great whisky writer Michael Jackson, who called it “the greatest all rounder in the world of whisky”. It’s characteristic style coming from the use of Sherry casks, along with an often cited heathery sweetness imparted to the spirit by way of the distinct Orcadian peat used during the malting process. This edition is to acknowledge the Autumn/Winter months on the Isle of Orkney, with its counterpart, The Light, due for release in 2018 is of course to laud Spring and Summer. The inscription on the side of the casing reads: “Names then gave they to noon and twilight. Morning they named. And the waning moon. Night and evening. The years to number.” - Voluspa, The Poetic Edda, Verse 6. Please note wear too outer box.