Highland Park 1958 - 1998 - 40 Year Old

INFORMATION

Highland Park 1958 - 1998. 40 Year Old. One of 665 bottles. 70cl. 44.0%.

Crowned one of the best Highland Park's ever bottled. This 1958 Highland Park was bottled back in 1998 at a natural cask strength of 44.0% - you would have thought this was the first official bottling by the distillery but they bottled a run of 40 year olds in the early 1970s but not again until this was released. I believe the casks selected for this bottling were Spanish Sherry Hogsheads. This is a remarkable and truly beautiful whisky that wears its age very gracefully.

DISTILLERY:Highland Park

DISTILLERY STATUS:Working

Bottle ABV:44.0%

Bottle SIZE:70cl / 700ml

Bottle PRODUCED:665

BOTTLER:Distillery Bottling

SPIRIT TYPE:Scotland

LIMITED EDITION:yes

CASK TYPE:Single Malt

REGION:Island

DISTILLED YEAR:1958

BOTTLING DATE::1998

AGE:40

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.