Highland Park

Hello and thank you for joining me in the fifth episode of whisky ON the water, an occasional series in which I combine my loves of whisky and travel with a special focus on whiskies available on cruise ships.

It is always special when you have some form of a connection with a whisky, such as when you visit the distillery.  The Highland Park distillery is a stand out special for me and very relevant to this series.  The reason being that I visited the distillery whilst on our first cruise after the covid pandemic.

Highland Park is a wonderful distillery to visit, the tours are informative, the tasting appreciated and the distillery is beautiful.  It is also a distillery where much is still done on premises which means you get to see more of the process - from malting through to warehouse.  The problem is its location.  Set on the outskirts of Kirkwall on the largest of the Orkney Islands, known as ‘The Mainland’, it is not possible to simply drive there.  In fact it is closer to Bergen in Norway than it is to Glasgow in Scotland, and 123 miles more than double the distance to London.  To give context it is further North than Moscow and roughly the same latitude as southern Greenland.  It is so far North that historically, despite being previously occupied by Picts it was taken by the Norsemen and has retained associations with that culture.  Even recently there have been discussions and votes exploring the suggestion that it break away from Britain and join Norway.  Fortunately it has a small port that can be visited by Cruise ships - which is what we did.  At the time the ship did not offer excursions to the distillery, which I was very pleased about.  Ship excursions can be a touch expensive and frequently result in large amounts of people all at once.  They do, however, bring security regarding getting back to the ship on time.  Kirkwall is, however, only a small place.  The distillery is only a 3 mile taxi ride from Hatston Pier, where cruise ships can dock, and only just over a mile from the harbour, where you tender to if the ship is unable to dock at Hatston.  Tours can be arranged in advance on line and there is also a distillery shop in the town centre as well. The roads are not really subject to traffic jams and these distances can even make it possible to do on foot. With a little sensible planning there is no real need to worry.  You can also take advantage of the chance to buy some limited releases, as we did, such as distillery only bottlings.  Getting back on the ship with bottles of whisky is not a problem - we have done so many times and often been allowed to take them back to the cabin and on the occasions when they did not allow this they were kept safely and returned to us on the last day of the cruise. 

When I say that I love whisky I don’t mean just the drink.  I love many aspects of it including the culture, history and marketing.  Highland Park is a great example why.  It is far away from other Scottish Distilleries with the exception of one other on the Island - Scapa, another fine whisky but one I have yet to find on a cruise ship.  The often used imagery of Scotch whisky is not dominant on Highland Park’s bottles.  Past artwork has been more Viking than Gaelic and toasts are often made with the word ‘Skoll’ rather than ‘Slainte’.  The flavour is also affected.  There is an Irish peated whiskey called Connemara - it is a lovely whiskey and the flavour has a softer and earthier sense to it than the coastal, salty peats of Islay.  A similar thing applies to Highland Park.  The Orkney Islands don’t have many trees - it is just too windy for them, so the landscape is more  heathery slopes.  This heather gives a character to the peat that is carried through to the whisky giving it a special level of atmosphere.  Orkney peat differs from Islay peat, it has more carbohydrate derivatives as opposed to Islay’s peat which holds more lignin derivatives.  I am not saying one is better than the other just that they are different. It is a bit like the difference between walking into a room of cigar smoke or a room of pipe smoke.  Both are smoke, both from tobacco, and yet there is a difference.  The same goes for peat.  The result is a unique flavoured whisky in a distinctive bottle with striking artwork.

The distillery first got its licence in 1798, that’s 227 years ago at time of recording and 87 years before its neighbouring Scapa Distillery, but there was activity before that.  It is old hat to make jokes based on the word spirit having more than one meaning but Highland Park can truly claim some origin in the holy spirit.  The founder was Magnus Eunson, known as Mansie.  He was a butcher and a church Beadle - meaning that he had position in the church in which he was charged with keeping order, giving notices and a range of other duties.  In the past there were parts of the land that held an advantage of being somewhat protected from the official inspectors.  The Campbeltown area is an example where by the tax man would arrive by boat which meant that those who needed it had a degree of warning.  Orkney would have been another example due to its remoteness.  However, this is not to say that it was  lawless and care was still needed.  Mansie was a known whisky smuggler and illicit distiller who is believed to have distilled on the site of the current distillery.  The story is told of how he would hide his stock in the church, using the pulpit itself as a storage place.  On one occasion, when hearing that an official visit was about to happen, he covered his produce with a sheet and placed a coffin on top.  Just to be sure that the curiosity of the inspector didn’t get the better of him Mansie whispered one word into the inspector’s ear ‘smallpox’.

Mansie wasn’t the only distiller on the island but he was the one who turned legal and obtained a licence. The stories don’t end there.  There is a tale of how he was caught smuggling his whisky to avoid the tax.  His whisky was confiscated and taken away but the officers had to break the journey and stayed at an Inn in Thurso.  Mansie had followed them and, as they slept, he carefully drilled holes in the floor from below and continued through into the casks, enabling him to drain them dry and get his whisky back.

The story has a sad ending as he was eventually charged and given the choice of prison or leaving - Mansie left and the distillery was vacant - only to be taken possession of by the arresting customs officer John Robertson.  

It has even been said that the Mansie was eventually canonised and that St Magnus’ Cathedral is named after him - that would be a great story except for the fact that St Magnus’ Cathedral dates back to 1137 when it was built to house the relics of St Magnus ‘barelegs’.

It is a distillery full of tales, even if some of them may not be backed up with proof.  One example is that during the second world war, when the distillery stopped production, the troops (some claim up to 60,000 of them) used the distillery’s wash backs as communal baths. I don’t know if that is a reality but this is part of the wonder of Orkney - the way that ancient history and recent history lay side by side and legend and recollection twist together in a rich tapestry.

The distillery has changed ownership a few times over the years, as is not uncommon, but has retained its unique character.  In part this is due to a number of things - I already mentioned the specific peat used to kiln the malt. Another factor is the hand turned floor malting that makes part of the malt used. One could argue that floor malting doesn’t make much of a difference, after all malt is malt.  But there are elements at play.  Malting by hand requires different levels of observation and control plus the process requires different demands of the grain.  The mechanised turning of grain is a constant process of rotation whereas the shovel turning is sudden and impactful.  In order to survive the hand turned process the grain needs to be stronger and that requires a thicker husk.  It is the husk that takes up a high level of the compounds coming from the peat smoke which then gets taken through to the distilled spirit. Then there is the warehousing on the island and the careful use of sherry casks for the maturation. It is said that the temperature variation on the island is much less than one would expect.  The winds may blow but the highs and lows of snow and sun are not as much of a feature as one might think - this can mean that there is less lost to the angels share and maturation is gentler. In countries where the variation is great the alcohol tends to escape and the contents drop in the abv over time.  In hotter countries it is the water that is mainly lost causing the contents to rise in the abv.  Hotter countries can mature whisky quicker but I often feel that it has a rougher effect.  Colder countries are slower but bring more complexity with it.  It may be that Highland Park is in the sweet spot of these extremes.  All this aside it also comes down to the people - the skill and craft and the developed traditions that make it unique. There is something to be said about the value of people and time.  I remember talking to Jim McEwan, of Bruichladdie fame, years ago, he was a man who could tell a tale. Just before I interviewed him the first time someone gave me advice - when it comes to interviewing Jim what you have to do is hold the microphone, say hello and then just be quiet - let Jim talk.  On one occasion he became teary eyed as he spoke about the passing of his mentor.  He talked to me about time and passing things on, he talked about going into a warehouse and looking at casks that were still there, casks that had been filled when he was young, casks filled by others who are no longer with us.  The casks held memories.  I had this sense at Highland Park as well.  There are staff there who have been there for decades, people who have been involved from malting the grain through to ageing in wood.  It makes a difference.  People care more when they are this involved, they put themselves into it.  This is important because whisky is not just a drink and it is not just a flavour.  There is character, culture, history and love in it.  There is knowledge, wisdom and hard work in the bottle and when you drink it in the knowledge of these things you connect to it in a deeper way.  I drink far less than I used to yet my love remains. It is hard to explain the joy from just looking at the bottle or smelling its scent but sharing that joy is why I do this.

Maybe it was this sense of joy that led to the following event  -

Tory chancellor and jazz lover Kenneth Clark made history in his 1995 UK budget by being the first to ever cut the tax on whisky, and he did so live whilst holding a glass of Highland Park.

Highland Park isn’t always easy available onboard but it regularly is.  It is one worth asking for and by doing so encourages the ships to keep them available.  It is a whisky that goes well with watching waves and taking time and is definitely one to raise a glass with as you consider it’s marvellous history.