Whisky Preview: Highland Park Dark Origins Offers a New Take on the Distillery's Signature Style

Clear glass bottle, delicious amber liquid. It's been a winning formula for Highland Park, so it's unclear why the Scottish distiller felt the need to go overboard with the marketing on the new Dark Origins whisky. Don't let the faux-mysterious packaging fool you though, what's inside is definitely worth paying attention to.

Since "origins" is in the name, let's start there: Back in the eighteenth century, the British Empire was taxing the whisky that the poor inhabitants of the Orkney Islands relied upon to keep warm through the Arctic winters. A church man named Magnus Eunson began bootlegging his own whisky by moonlight, after long days of tending to the congregation. The local hero would often hide casks under the pulpit itself and even faked funerals so he could stash the liquid in the caskets. This was the beginning of Highland Park. Or so the legend goes.