Highland Park Distillery
Holm Road, Kirkwall
Orkney KW15 ISU
+44 1856 874 619
Owner: The Edrington Group
Creation year: 1798
Highland Park, the most Northern of all Scottish distilleries dominates both the city of Kirkwall and the famous Scapa Flow. At the end of the 18th century, preacher Magnus Eunson who was a famous smuggler, is supposed to have distilled spirit on the place of the current distillery. He was hiding stocks of illegal spirit under the pulpit in the church. This preacher who was a native of Orkney has been canonized here later, but the church of Kirkwall has not been named after him, but after Magnus Erlendsson who died some 600 years earlier.
The current distillery has been built in 1825 by Robert Borwick, but is became soon the property of John Robertson who was the excise man who jailed Magnus Eunson for moonshine distilling. Later on the ownership of the distillery has been shared between Borwick and Robertson, until the last retired. After the death of Robert Borwick, his son George became manager of the business until 1860.
After this, Highland Park has been owned by different people since 1890 when James Grant, owner of The Glenlivet formed a partnership with William Stuart, owner of Miltonduff.
The production capacity was doubled in 1898, 10 years after the buying-up of William Stuarts shares by James Grant.
It is part of the Highland Distillers group since 1937.
The Highland Distillers group has been acquired by Edrington Group in November 1999 for £ 601m.
Highland Park is part of the composition of Long John amongst others.
