Twenty-seven winters change a whisky. The peat that once stood sharp has settled into a low, steady hum, and the heather honey has had time to spread across the whole glass. Hunter Laing found the cask, left it a little longer, then emptied it in one go.
The expert's description
Highland Park 27 Year Old The Kinship 2023 Single Orkney Malt Whisky 52.5% is a Single Orkney Malt Whisky drawn from one refill hogshead and bottled without chill filtration at its natural cask strength of 52.5%.
The Kinship is Hunter Laing's annual collection of old single casks, presented around Fèis Ìle, the whisky festival on Islay. The Laing family has worked with casks for three generations out of Glasgow, and selection follows a single rule: the cask has to carry its own age. This bottling comes not from Islay but from Kirkwall on Orkney.
Highland Park has been distilling since 1798 and still dries part of its own malt over peat cut at Hobbister Moor, just outside Kirkwall. No trees grow on Orkney, so the peat is heather and moss rather than woody debris, and the smoke it gives is floral and aromatic instead of medicinal. After 27 years that smoke has sunk deep into the spirit.
A refill hogshead has held whisky before, so it gives less wood and more distillery. That is exactly what you want when a malt has to sit for almost three decades without turning dry and tannic. The cask yielded 268 bottles, filled in 2023 at natural colour.
Tasting notes
Nose
Baked pears and heather honey sit on top, with a ripe, earthy peat underneath that reads more like warm ash than a bonfire. Give it five minutes and beeswax and dried apricot arrive.
Palate
Sweetness leads. Honey, mandarin and a flick of passion fruit, before black pepper and dry oak spice tighten the grip. The 52.5% registers as warmth rather than heat.
Finish
Long and understated. The sweetness lingers, the smoke stays quietly in the back, and heather and a trace of salt close it out.
Specifications
Name: Highland Park 27 Year Old The Kinship 2023 Single Orkney Malt Whisky 52.5%
Distillery: Highland Park
Bottler: Hunter Laing
Region/Country: Orkney, Scotland
Type: Single Orkney Malt Whisky
Age: 27 years
ABV: 52.5%
Size: 70 CL
Cask type: Refill hogshead
Non-chill filtered: Yes
Natural colour: Yes
Bottled: 2023
Number of bottles: 268
Edition: The Kinship 2023
Flavour profile
Smoky · Fruity · Honeyed · Mature · Elegant
Investment potential
High. One cask, 27 years in the warehouse and a small outturn, combined with the fact that Highland Park rarely releases spirit of this age itself. Independent bottlings of old Orkney malt grow scarcer every year.
Did you know?
Hunter Laing bottled other people's whisky for decades before the family built a distillery of its own. Ardnahoe on Islay was completed in 2018 and became the first site the company could call its own.
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