Highland Park

Highland Park is distilled on Orkney, and the thing people get wrong is assuming that island whisky means the medicinal, iodine-heavy smoke of Islay. Orkney has almost no trees, so its peat is compressed heather rather than compressed forest. The smoke it gives is floral and slightly sweet, closer to a garden bonfire than to a hospital. It sits under the whisky rather than on top of it.

The range divides mostly by two things: years in cask, and how much of that cask was sherry-seasoned. The 12 is the house statement, lightly smoky and sherry-touched. The 15 sits in more first-fill oak and drinks rounder. The 18 is where the sherry influence and the heather smoke finally hold each other in balance, and it is the bottle most people mean when they say they like this distillery. Above that, the 21 and the occasional single cask trade in age and rarity.

Paying past the 18 buys concentration and scarcity, not more of the heather signature. If that signature is what you came for, the money stops working quite hard somewhere around the 18.

This list is sorted by price, lowest first.