The Orkney Islands are a rather barren and desolate place. The wind from the North Atlantic blows constantly, making it nigh impossible for anything to take root. Here, a forest is a collection of six trees and the temperature always hovers between 8 and 15 Celsius. Neither man nor beast finds much comfort here.
But it turns out that the capital of the 70-odd islands, Kirkwall, is a pretty fine place to make some of the worlds most expensive, and arguably best, whiskeys.
Highland Parks founder Magnus Eunson started the distillery in 1798 after he got busted for smuggling liquor and decided to go legit. (He was more successful the time he outwitted the excise men by hastily putting all of his bottles into a casket and convening a fake wake for his dearly departed friend just as the tax men pounded on his door.)
Skim forward 200 years to a Highland Park whisky tasting at Blue Water Cafe. A restaurant known for its seafood might have seemed like an odd pairing, but it turns out it was the perfect one.
Without much fresh produce available in the Orkneys, the locals turn to the sea for their sustenance.
Chef Frank Pabsts ability to celebrate the oceans bounty knows no bounds. He doused his herring with Highland Park before adding a fingerling potato salad with a warm sherry vinaigrette. There was complete silence in the restaurants Oceans dining room as people bowed at the temple of his Sechelt Sturgeon lightly smoked with applewood. And who knew oysters could taste even better with a little whisky sprinkled on top?
Hosting the evening was Dan Volway, Western Canadas brand ambassador for Highland Park, The Macallan and Famous Grouse. He suggested that instead of swirling each of the whiskeys ranging in age from 10 to 18 in your glass, you should hold it chest level and move it from side to side.
When youre ready to taste, breathe through your mouth as well as your nose. Let the taste linger. As to whether you add water, its up to you. (At Blue Water Cafe they use a small dropper.)
Scots like their whisky at room temperature, but since they live in such a cold climate, that means 18 to 19 degrees.
I think its a lot of fun to pair whisky and food, says Blue Waters bar manager Keith Trusler. Its safer than wine sometimes because not as much can go wrong.
Compared to a wine tasting, throughout the dinner there were few of the ornate descriptions about the whiskys flavour. Whisky aficionados seem to like to sip and sigh with contentment, with the whisky doing most of the talking.
Whisky is 90 per cent water. The rest is a malt made out of barley. At Highland Park, they not only turn the malt by hand but they smoke the 9,000-year-old island peat the terroir of whisky for 18 hours to enhance the barleys contribution. (Hence one of the comments that the Highland 10 smells like heaven and smoke.)
Sixty per cent of the whiskys flavour comes from the type of casks, Volway says. This shows in Highland Parks annual yes, annual budget of $25 million for casks.
For some whiskys they use American oak thats aged in Spain while for others they use the hard-to-find Spanish oak. The barrels are then loaned to sherry producers before returning them to Highland Park to be used no more than twice.
The whole process takes about 105 years when you factor in how long it takes the tree to grow, Volway says with a smile.
