The Whisky Guy Blog

Peat is an important component of Scotch whisky, giving distinct levels of smokiness to barley as it dries the grain.  Considering the vegetation that comprises peat died thousands of years ago, it’s perhaps the original recycled product.  Peat harvesting has been done for thousands of years for use as a heat source and a drying agent.

Highland Park is one of the few distilleries that harvests its own peat.  Cutting peat blocks out of a landscape that has seen human habitation for more than 5,000 years occasionally leads to more than just decayed vegetation coming out of the ground.

In 2006, a peat cutter noticed a lump of metal in one of his peat blocks.  Thinking little of it, he gave it to a co-worker to take home to clean it up that night.  The co-worker’s father asked to take a look at the object and noticed it seemed a bit unusual.  The father asked to take it to a colleague at Orkney College who was an expert in archaeology.  The next day, the archaeologist salivated over an extremely rare Bronze Age ceremonial axe head that had been ritually placed in the peat bog thousands of years earlier.  It’s currently on display at the Orkney Museum in Kirkwall.

Bronze Age axe head found in the Highland Park peat bog.

The deep past isn’t the only surprise Highland Park’s peat cutters face.  One day a few years ago, they paused their cutting when they heard the sound of metal on metal.  Distillery Manager Russell Anderson was sitting in his office when the peat team called, describing the object they found.  He laughed at their call and hung up on their practical joke.  They called back again. And again.  Finally, he started to take them seriously and rushed out to the bog for a look at their find.

No joke, they’d found a bomb.

The Orkney Islands saw German action in both World Wars, and was also a staging area for the U.K. military.  The bomb was likely from one of those eras, though a bomb squad from the mainland made sure people didn’t have too much time to inspect it.   They blew it up.

So, if you think Highland Park is a hard hitting whisky with an explosion of flavor, there is more to that assessment than meets the eye!

At some point, within the first five minutes of finding out I write about whisky, people inevitably ask me what my favorite whisky is.  As I’ve stated here many times before, I can honestly say the best whisky is the one you’re drinking when you stop and say, “I love this moment.”  I gave an impromptu whisky tasting in Caen, France last week, and I didn’t have much variety in whiskies with me, but the Laphroaig 10-year-old was perfect in that moment, with the gentle rain and the French music.

Highland Park produces one of the best single malts available.

Once I explain my thoughts about the best whisky, I always follow up with this: even though the best whisky is the one you’re drinking at a particularly fine moment, I always have several bottles of Highland Park 18-year-old in my cabinet.  Why several bottles? Well, it’s really so good I never want to be caught short of it.

With that in mind, I made the journey to Scotland’s Orkney islands last month to spend time talking with Highland Park Distillery Manager Russell Anderson and to tour the more than 200-year-old distillery that produces, in my opinion, the perfect dram in the 18-year-old.

The Orkney islands are an aberration for Scotland.  The island chain was in the Nordic realms until 400 some years ago, and even now it feels more like its own country in some ways because of that heritage.  Gaelic influence, which is readily felt in places like Islay or Skye, seems absent in Orkney except in the very vital area of whisky distillation.  The Orkney main island is surrounded by rugged waters that have time and again seen the impact of history, from Neolithic times and the 5,000 year old house remains at Skara Brae village to the submerged German WWI fleet in the Scapa Flow.

My goal was to learn less about epochs of time and more about the relatively short term time it takes to produce a good Highland Park: 12, 15, 18, 30 years or whatever it may be.  Island distilleries must be fairly independent and innovative with their processes due to their remoteness from the Scottish mainland.  When issues arise all they have are the resources at hand to utilize for their production.

For Highland Park (www.highlandpark.co.uk), those resources mean harvesting their own peat from land near their location in Kirkwall.  According to Russell, the peat is critical to Highland Park’s flavor profile.  They’ve experimented with other peat, even peat from elsewhere in the Orkneys, and the subtle differences in vegetation make for a major change in the end product.  So, for six months out of the year their peat cutting team is hard at work harvesting the catalyst for the distillery’s own floor maltings.

Cutting one’s own peat and doing one’s own maltings is not inexepensive for a distillery that produced 2.5 million litres last year.  However, Russell says he holds his own ground against any accountants who question those higher costs.

“It’s about maintaining quality and it’s quite an expensive product to produce,” he says.  “But, I’m absolutely convinced that the extra cost is critical for quality.”

A walk through the distillery seems like a walk through time, as the original stone buildings and cobblestone paths make Highland Park look like a living history museum.  Despite being on a relatively remote island far removed from any major city, Highland Park receives thousands of visitors every year.  Most know and love the malt, which makes their visit a pilgrimage of sorts.  I have to say, I felt the same way.

“I still to this day find it extremely humbling for people to come from all over the world to see the distillery. It’s my day job,” Russell says.

Each Highland Park expression has a different balance of Orkney peatiness, barley maltiness and fermented sweetness.  For me, and for Russell, the 18-year-old is the perfect culmination of that balance.  The 18-year-old uses a higher percentage of sherry casks than younger offerings to bring a spicy sweetness to the marriage of oak and peat.  Put simply, everything is right with the 18-year-old.  Nothing can make it any better, and every time I have a sip I have the same amazed reaction.

Russell and his team work very hard to keep Highland Park’s 210-year-old tradition of excellence strong.  For a distillery with such a large output, there is considerable care and attention to detail in the production process.  The result is a whisky that is produced in enough quantity to reach discriminating consumers around the world and is delivered with enough quality to keep them coming back for more.

Let me get this out of the way: Caol Ila has the best location for a distillery I’ve ever seen.  Are there others I’ve yet to see that could be better? Perhaps.  If something can top Caol Ila, I look forward to it.  Let me also get this out of the way: Caol Ila’s actual distillery benefits greatly from the location.

The view from Caol Ila is unbeatable.

The distillery is tucked at the base of imposing cliffs with a waterfall funneling its way through the forested cliff face.  As impressive as that is, the other side of the distillery is breathtaking. Without the fast rushing waters of the Sound of Islay on its front door and the majestic Paps of Jura towering across the way, the distillery would be little more than an industrial spirits production facility.  That’s not a very romantic description, though appropriate.  What makes the entire experience romantic is looking past the massive stills and through the enormous windows to see a sailboat slipping through the Sound.

Caol Ila is deceptive in another way as well.  Like its Islay cousin Lagavulin, Caol Ila’s barley is malted with a 35ppm peat level.  The finished product lacks the huge punch of Lagavulin and instead offers a passionate kiss of peatiness that follows the sweet caress the spirit delivers.

Two factors contribute significantly to Caol Ila’s sweet spirit.  The first is clear wort that comes off the mash tun, which has a three wash cycle.  The second factor is the extremely long fermentation in the distillery’s larch washbacks.  Caol Ila has a 110 hour fermentation process, which is double the length of fermentation for numerous distilleries.  The longer fermentation allows the yeast to suck every last ounce of sugar out of the wort and gives a nice contrast to the peatiness imparted by the barley.

That sweet and smoky flavor profile also has strong hints of the sea, which is also a bit of a game of smoke and mirrors.  The distillery only has room for 7,000 casks on-site, and most of those are older stocks.  All new spirit is shipped to the mainland to be casked.  So, let those arguments about whether or not salty sea air influences the flavor of whisky continue.  Personally, I think it does, but I can also taste the sea in Caol Ila.  Who knows: with all those years on the Pacific Ocean in L.A., maybe I’m the one who is infused with sea salt.

The bulk of Caol Ila’s 2.3 million liters produced each year goes toward Diageo’s Johnnie Walker blends.   The remaining goes toward its core range of 12 and 18 year old expressions, as well as some of the limited bottlings, such as an 8-year-old unpeated edition, un-aged cask strength, 12-year-old Distiller’s edition matured in a Muscatel cask for six months and a 25-year-old limited edition.

Looking down upon Caol Ila from the village above.

My cottage was located 20 minutes from Caol Ila, through fields and across burns.  I would often walk past the distillery to spend time sitting along the rocky shore, downwind of the distillery, soaking in the rich barley aromas.  Caol Ila produces a massive amount of whisky and its distillery is built for that purpose.  For me, though, the whisky evokes memories of seals playing along the shore, a wealth of seabirds splashing in the waves and a smoky-sweet liquid crossing my lips as I enjoyed a rare sunny day on Islay in winter.  Caol Ila is essentially my friendly neighborhood distillery.  I encourage you to give it a try and maybe the dram will take you there, too.