Highland Park 1967-2003 - 35 Year Old - Jim McEwans Celtic Heartlands

One of Scotland’s greatest distilleries, Highland Park on the Orkney archipelago has a long and storied history. The distillery in Kirkwall was founded in the 18th century by either David Robertson or Magnus Eunson, the latter of whom was a famous smuggler churchman who hid casks of his whisky from customs men by stashing them under his pulpit. Highland Park distillery has been owned by the Edrington Group since 1999 and is famed for its lightly smoky character from its own peated floor-maltings, which make up around 20% of the barley used for distillation.

Official bottlings of Highland Park began around the end of the 1970s, marking the beginning of a remarkable run of core bottlings, with the famous slope-shouldered 12-year-old and 18-year-old OBs from the 1980s now highly sought after at auction, as are the 1990s editions of the official 25-year-old. Independent bottlings of Highland Park are rare.

Independent whisky bottler Murray McDavid was founded by La Réserve wine merchants Simon Coughlin and Mark Reynier with Gordon Wright from Springbank in 1994. Murray McDavid quickly established themselves in the new wave of indie bottlers, with a string of great whiskies bottled without colouring or chill filtration at a minimum strength of 46%.

After a failed bid for Ardbeg in 1997, Murray McDavid bought Bruichladdich distillery in 2000 and swiftly transformed the rundown distillery’s fortunes, employing Jim McEwan as manager and embracing the wine finishing trend with gusto. In 2012 Murray McDavid & Bruichladdich were bought by Rémy Cointreau, who sold Murray McDavid to Aceo Ltd, another whisky broker and bottling company, the following year.