Whiskey Persona ™:
WOODSMAN
As a Woodsman, you wear your beard, not because it’s cool, but because you don’t have time to even shave. You’re too busy hunting and roasting the wild boar you killed with your bare hands over the smoky fire you started without the help of a match. You kill venomous snakes in your sleep and run with wild wolves like they’re your pack. When people say you’re like Wolverine, you remind them that Wolverine is like you. You are raw power harnessed from nature.
The whisk(e)ys1 that best fit your Whiskey Persona are: strong, powerful and intensely smoky…
HIGHLAND PARK 18:
One moment, you might be this sweet man saving a baby bird from falling off a tree branch, and in another moment, you might be hunting a wild animal in the depths of the woods. Like you, this whisky is a juxtaposition of sweet and smoky, soft and hard. It’s full of fruit notes like wild berries. And, with a few drops of water, tropical notes come to the nose. But don’t forget the other side of this whisky: the peaty side. This whisky will remind you of the time you went running through the woods barefoot just to feel the dampened twigs massaging your feet. That earthy aroma mixed with smoke is the smell you’ll enjoy tingling your nose as you swirl the liquid in your glass. Don’t wait any longer. Get a glass.
Style: Single Malt2 Scotch
Age: 18 Years
Alcohol: 43% abv.
Produced at: Highland Park Distillery
Region: Scotland (Orkney)
Distillery Manager: Graham Manson
SOME FACTS:
- Highland Park is the most northerly whisky distillery in Scotland.
- It was founded in 1798, is currently owned by The Edrington Group, who also owns other whisky brands like The Macallan and The Famous Grouse.
- The name “Highland Park” does not refer to the area of Scotland known as The Highlands, from which Orkney is excluded, but to the fact that the distillery was founded on an area called ‘High Park’ distinguished from a lower area nearby.
- Highland Park is one of only a handful of distilleries that still retains a traditional malting floor, turning each batch of malt by hand, in what is a physically demanding process.
- Highland Park is also one of the ingredients of The Famous Grouse blend.
- Highland Park whiskies have a unique character of having delicate, sweet, aromatic peat smoke flavors. The Orkney Islands have an abundance of this sweet, heathery peat, which is around 4000 years old and is carefully selected from Hobbister Moor. The peat is a mixture of textures and aromas ranging from a more floral heather-rich top layer, to a darker, denser material, the mixture giving the resulting smoke a slow burning and complex aroma. Distillery Manager, Graham Manson, says the sweet, heathery peat3 plays an “absolutely fundamental” role in the whisky.
SOME WHISK(E)Y TERMS DEFINED:
- Whisky vs. whiskey: Both spellings are correct. The difference is primarily due to geography. “Whisky” is primarily used in: Canada, Japan, Scotland, England, and Wales. “Whiskey” is primarily used in Ireland and the United States. For more info, click here.
- Single malt (type): Single malt whisky is a whisky made at one distillery from a mash that uses only malted grain, usually barley. Malting (process): The grains (e.g. barley) are made to germinate by soaking in water, and are then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air. The resulting dried germinated cereal grains are called “malt.”
- Peat (flavor): Peat is basically turf made of partially decayed vegetation, e.g. moss and wood. In Scotland, particularly in Islay, peat is used as fuel to create fires that dry malted barley (one of the steps of making whisky). It’s what makes whiskies taste like root-like medicinal smokiness.
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