Following this week’s news that Highland Park have just closed their distillery for refurbishment until the end of the year, I came on here to revisit my post about my time at the distillery a few years ago… only to find that it never actually published!
Well… no time like the present… Something to look back on whilst the 226 year old building gets some overdue TLC.
Flashback to October 2018…
If you’re a whisky nerd and you’re going to Orkney… you’ve got to do it properly. Scapa and Highland Park tours had been booked well in advance, but this was no time to do a basic tour and try a couple of core rangers…
Enter Magnus Eunson.
Who is he? He’s the founder of the Highland Park distillery, which first opened its gates in 1798. That is also the name of the tour and tasting session that we had booked. The promise of a no-holds-barred tour of the whisky making process from start to finish and then the sampling of their whole range of age statement whiskies is what lay ahead.
With an air of excitement the 3 of us giddy Whisky Unplugged alumni strode through Kirkwall to the designated collection point outside St. Magnus Cathedral for our lift to Highland Park distillery. This came in the form of a fully branded black mini-bus supplied by the distillery, which offered a pretty cool start to proceedings!
We were greeted by Jim, who gave us a warm welcome and kicked off the whisky chat with us and our fellow passengers. With introductions complete, a short trip uphill soon saw us stood outside the austere stone walls and entrance. As we stood in front of its well-photographed gates, we could see a plume of peat smoke leaving the pagoda, and an overwhelming feeling of heritage was oozing from what stood before us. It all set the scene for what was to be a very special visit for the WU team.
Whether or not you’re sold on the ‘Viking Theme’ used by the HP marketeers you cannot escape that it certainly gives the distillery visitor centre a distinct look and feel, even down to a rather Viking-esque chap with plaited beard manning the sales counter. I’m sure it’s not mandatory to look like a Viking to work here, but it helps.
Beyond the counter and rails of merch, we were greeted by a rather lovely chap and self-proclaimed proud Orcadian called James. No beards or Norse trinkets here. Just heritage and japes. James started our tour with a gentle walk around the room discussing where folks had come from today for the tour and where their interest lies with whisky. [ed: not to be confused with their equally nice chap called Jim, from Yorkshire, who did the initial taxi meet-and-greet service] It was during this informal series of ice-breakers that you relaxed into proceedings, got to know everyone a little bit, and really got to feel that James was both gentile and passionate about his industry – and he certainly knew his whiskies inside-out.
After a short film the tour began properly with a short walk outside to get your bearings and learn the layout of the distillery. It was here that the real heritage shone through. Its crammed layout of rain-covered stone and slate shouted ‘I’m old, I’ve survived long since the Victorian age, I’ve endured the Orcadian elements, and I’m proud of it’.
What I noticed is that despite the norse motifs appearing throughout, when you’re actually beyond the gift shop [ed: which is, of course, where the tour starts and ends…] and walking on the grounds of the distillery site itself, it does not necessarily have that Disney-like feel that some distilleries do. Instead it has an honest and un-sanitised working day feel which is quite refreshing and honest.
For example, unlike most distilleries, HP still malts its barley in a traditional malting room. Whilst the Orcadian climate does not allow for the growth of their own barley, you could still see that when it did arrive from mainland Scotland, that there are no frills here. The steeped barley is turned every 6 hours by hand with a wooden shiel and elbow grease; though there are mechanical turners available, these are also hand operated, putting the arms and backs of the staff to the test.
I’m not going to run through everything about the tour in this post, as much of it is similar to any other distillery, but what I will highlight are a few stand-out parts and the malt drying kilns are certainly worth mentioning. (I did say that we were whisky nerds!) The kilns are still fired on peat and coke [ed: not the drink but the odourless, heating fuel made from coal]. These are still hand fired and carefully managed by a ‘kilnman’ and really was something of a treat to see in action. The wafting of peat smoke in the air was just incredible. James noted that the heat was also welcome too as there are two seasons in Orkney: June and Winter.
In the mash house, it was great to see some wooden washbacks still in use. 12 of them in fact! Much debate is had over whether or not these have any effect on whisky’s flavour, and whilst the consensus generally seems that this is not the case, as many distilleries are now using stainless steel, I still love to see them in place. They are far less sterile-looking and I know that their continued use is also helping to keep another age-old industry going. There was also a little nod back to their Viking roots here, given that the Siberian larch used for some of the washbacks was also the wood used to make the Norsemen’s infamous longboats.
Beyond the washbacks was a more familiar giant stainless steel mash tun and then the glorious sight of HP’s two copper wash stills and two copper spirit stills, and obligatory spirit safe where we were told about the heads, hearts, and tails cuts of the spirit. The smell and heat from these things… wow.
Next we visited one of the warehouses. After unlocking the giant gate, we were greeted by a stunning smell of oak and spirits. As we walked in to see the rows and rows of casks maturing, we were also offered the chance to a smell a recently opened cask which was stood out in the corridor on its own. Of course, we stuck our noses straight in! [ed: again: nerds!]
After leaving the warehouse, it was time to walk to the room that we had all spotted on the walk through the courtyard: the tasting room!
I have put the notes from the actual tasting into a separate post available here: Magnus Eunson Tour / Core Range Tasting but this is where we then spent a glorious 1h30 tasting some great whisky and freely chatting with our host and fellow guests.
The room was snug and filled with numerous bottles, collectibles, and unique pieces of Highland Park’s history. The table and bench seats were actually made from an old washback too.
There was one shelf in particular that caught my eye as it had a long row of medicine style bottles containing liquids of varying colours. I was stunned when James revealed that they were in fact all 12 year old Highland Park whisky, and just goes to show how each cask can produce something quite different! Like I say, the chat was free flowing and they even offered to get us a taxi back if we didn’t make the bus back into central Kirkwall – but they held the bus behind anyway!
Despite a lot of the promotional materials talking about the 25 Year Old Highland Park being voted the best in the world, it was not actually available on the day. It seems crazy that even at the distillery itself, they can’t get hold of their own product! What they did do however, was then replace that sample with something really special: a 46 year old Highland Park. Not just that… but it was out of the cask that we’d gone and stuck our noses in earlier. A lovely touch and real highlight. You can’t get that anywhere else.
It will be really interesting to see what comes from the refurbishment. I hope that the originality and working feel of the distillery is preserved. Those values alone should be enough to sell this as a quality brand of whisky, and maybe they could dial down the Viking references a bit and let the working heritage come through. Maybe a future visit should be made to double check…
As you might be able to tell from the wording above, I was in awe of the place. The 3 of us were. A real one-off that we still regularly talk about.
Tasting Notes on the Magnus Eunson Tour Exclusive: Highland Park 46 Years Old – 40.1% ABV
Well, this is something special. Truly special. This is not a bottling that has been made commercially available, nor is it even bottled as a single cask release for special issue on site, but instead it is served at the distillery for this tour only. This whisky was originally distilled in 1968 and has been captured at its final cask strength of 40.1% ABV – just before it could lose its whisky credentials in a final offering to the angel’s share. At 46 years old it is also the oldest whisky that any of us in WU had tasted before. The whisky was previously housed in a 3rd fill ex bourbon cask and it transpires that we had secretly been shown it during the Magnus Eunson tour, unbeknownst to us that we would soon be tasting it! Sneaky!
As a single ex-bourbon cask, HP’s traditionally sherry-led maturation was not on display here but the ‘aromatic peat’ that HP rely on was present, albeit at the back there somewhere, just. The bourbon barrel was the dominant feature here (obviously) but strangely it had done very little to colour the whisky. What it had done though, was give the whisky all of it’s wood and vanilla flavours. The strong wood influence even felt like it had left a pine needle flavour in the mouth. There were still some subtle tropical notes present too. Pineapple in particular. The finish was quite spicy (pepper) and punchy and overall the oak was king here. In the aftertaste you could basically taste the staves. What an experience and what a way to close a thoroughly phenomenal tasting!
M
whisky unplugged 
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