Orkney based distillery, 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.
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, Highland Park, Master Whisky Maker, 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.
Available from specialist outlets globally from March 2021, 274 bottles have been created, each signed by Highland Park Master Whisky Maker, Gordon Motion.