Highland Park has unveiled its new 50-year-old single malt Scotch whisky, the third 50-year-old created in the distillery’s 223 year history.
Available from specialist outlets globally from March 2021, 274 bottles have been created, each signed by Highland Park master whisky maker, Gordon Motion.
The 50-year-old whiskies have been created using a traditional solera system – best known as a method of maturing sherry – which takes a small quantity of the whisky produced from a previous batch and marries it together with the new whisky, continuing a legacy within a legacy.
This new Highland Park 50 Year Old edition has been carefully selected from nine refill casks, originally laid down in 1968, married together in 2008 then re-racked into a handful of the finest first-fill sherry seasoned oak casks. Then, after a further 12 years of maturation, one of these limited casks was selected and married with a small quantity of the whisky from the last 50-year-old released by the distillery.
Gordon Motion, master whisky maker at the Orkney based distillery, said: ‘This 50 Year Old whisky is one of our oldest and rarest releases and I’m very proud to have been a part of its journey.
‘The whisky is spectacular, when I sampled the whisky from the re-racked casks, the whisky it contained – aged for a little over 50 years – had absorbed the rich sherried flavours of dried fruit and sweet toffee from its final first-fill cask maturation, but still retained all the delicate fragrance and flavours driven by the original refill casks.
‘I introduced a small quantity of this cask to some of our 2018 batch of 50 Year Old, which I’d held back specifically for this purpose, to create a further layer of depth and complexity. As the 2018 50 Year Old also contains some of our 2010 batch of 50 Year Old – our first in the series – this approach allows me to maintain the core DNA of our oldest Highland Park whisky through each extremely limited batch release.’
Presented in a hand-made wooden box, crafted from walnut by Scottish master craftsman, John Galvin, the whisky is encased in an embossed heavy-weight glass bottle featuring a design inspired by the Norse heritage of our Orkney island home, which dates back over 1200 years.
Decorated in intricately decorated metal, encasing a hand-crafted crystal decanter and leather-bound book detailing the story of the 50 Year Old whisky completes the presentation.
The new Highland Park 50 Year Old will be available from specialist retailers globally and a limited number will be available from the distillery and online shop from March 2021. To find out more about Highland Park visit: www.highlandparkwhisky.com
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