"The still is the voice. The place is the accent."
The copper removes sulphur, shapes the character, determines the weight of what comes through. Highland Park's stills are not interchangeable with any other.
Kirkwall, Orkney Islands
Founded
1798
Region
Orkney Islands
Distinction
Scotland's most northerly distillery
Character
Sea-salted · Heathery · Peated
Distillery Profile
Founded in 1798, still producing in 2026 — unchanged in the ways that matter.
Highland Park sits on the outskirts of Kirkwall, the principal town of the Orkney Islands — an archipelago lying fifty miles off the northern tip of mainland Scotland, where the North Sea meets the Atlantic. It is Scotland's most northerly distillery, and it has been making whisky here, largely without interruption, for more than two centuries.
What makes Highland Park singular is the convergence of factors that could only exist in this particular place. The water comes from Cattie Maggie's spring, filtered through Old Red Sandstone. The barley is partially malted over peat cut from Hobbister Moor — a peat unlike any other, formed from heather and compressed roots rather than the coniferous vegetation of Islay, producing a smoke that is aromatic and complex rather than purely medicinal.
The distillery uses its own floor maltings to process a portion of its barley — a practice abandoned by almost every other Scottish distillery, maintained here because it makes the whisky better.
"The peat smoke from Hobbister Moor
smells of nothing else on earth."
The Process
Why the character of Highland Park is inseparable from its place.
Cut from Hobbister Moor, a few miles south of Kirkwall. Orkney peat is formed from heather, compressed over millennia, and produces a smoke that is aromatic and floral rather than the iodine-dominated character of island peats further south.
A small proportion of Highland Park's barley is still malted on traditional stone floors, where it is turned by hand over several days. Almost no other Scottish distillery maintains this practice. It contributes a particular character to the final whisky.
Eight copper pot stills — four wash stills, four spirit stills — of an unusual shape designed to maximise copper contact and produce a lighter, more aromatic new-make spirit. The shape of the still is as critical as the quality of the barley.
The whisky matures in warehouses on Orkney, subject to the island's particular climate — humid, cool, subject to Atlantic weather. The angels take their share slowly here. The spirits that survive develop a complexity that reflects the patience required.
From Our Selection
Currently available as part of The Highland Passage flight pack.
Kirkwall, Orkney Islands
Single Cask · Cask Strength · Non Chill-Filtered
Nose
Sea air and heather honey. Warm Orkney peat, distant and dignified. Sweet vanilla and orange rind, warm biscuit from the oak.
Palate
Rich malt sweetness with the smoke building slowly. Dark dried fruit, nutmeg, a suggestion of dark chocolate. Rounded and deeply satisfying.
Finish
Long, warming, maritime. The peat lingers with elegance — never dominant. A finish that rewards patience.