Highland Park Distillery

Fuck crypto, kids--invest in single malt Scotch whiskey.

This vintage, bottled the year I graduated from high school, now sells for more than $30,000!

Highland Park, which started out as a bootlegging operation in 1798, afforded our only opportunity for a distillery tour.  We weren't going to have enough time to drive the Malt Whiskey Trail several days later.

The guide greeted us with bad news, however.  A lorry accident that knocked out some overhead pipes two weeks prior had shut down operations temporarily.

The booze-making process begins in this room where workers spread harvested barley on the bare floor as they have for centuries.

The grain is soaked in water released from these vats.  Think of an oversize fire sprinkler.

Simple tools help make sure all the barley gets soaked and begins releasing the sugars that eventually convert to alcohol.

Everything was pristine and just so.  It seemed a little like a Disneyfied version of a distillery but what do I know?

This brick structure, which dates to the Victorian era, houses one of the distillery's two kilns.

After a week, workers dry the malted barley over peat fires.  An extraordinarily atmospheric introductory video emphasized how much Orkney peat contributes to the unique flavor of Highland Park Scotch.

Peat and coal, the two essential ingredients of the drying process.

Milled into a dry powder called grist, the malted barley is deposited into mash tuns and soaked in spring water, turning it to "wort."  After depositing the wort into wooden "wash" backs, yeast is added.  Fermentation begins in the wash, continuing until it reaches an alcohol concentration of seven per cent.

The alcoholic wash is piped into the still house while the leftover wort, recycled into fertilizer, is piped elsewhere.  I believe the lorry crashed into the fertilizer pipe over the highway, not pictured here.

The shape of the still contributes to the distinctive taste of Highland Park Scotch.

The high class moonshine ends up in wood barrels made of oak found only in Spain and California.

The Scotch sits on the shelf at least twelve years before bottling.

Bottoms up for everyone except the designated driver.  I got my taste to go.