A lovely present

Tonight we nipped over to see my parents in law and my father in law gave me this lovely bottle of 12 year old Highland Park. This distillery is a Scotch whisky distillery based in Kirkwall, Orkney. It is the most northerly whisky distillery in Scotland, half a mile farther north than that at Scapa distillery.

The distillery was founded in 1798, presumably by Magnus Eunson. The name of this whisky does not refer to the area known as The Highlands, but rather 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 the few distilleries to malt its own barley, using locally cut peat from Hobbister Moor. The peat is then mixed with heather before being used as fuel. The malt is peated to a level of 20 parts per million phenol and then mixed with unpeated malt produced on the Scottish mainland.

In 1984, Highland Park was the only whisky ever to have scored a rating of 100% by the regular tasting team of The Scotsman, a national newspaper of Scotland. Whisky reviewer and expert Michael Jackson has called it "The greatest all-rounder in the world of malt whisky."

Looking forward to having a taste and perhaps sharing with Andrew.