Highland Park Launches New "Between You and I" 17 Year Old Single Malt inspired by Artist Laila Gohar

A CONVERSATION IN FLAVOUR 

In the second edition of its ”Between You and I” whisky—created in conversation with leading talents from the worlds of food, art and fashion—Orkney distillery Highland Park has partnered with New York-based artist Laila Gohar to create a 17-year-old single malt that, with its elegant spiciness and enigmatic smoke, uses flavour to offer a window into her playful, surreal and endlessly imaginative world.  

This special edition whisky, inspired by Gohar’s Egyptian heritage and crafted with new American Oak casks for pronounced notes of spice and orange blossom, comes in colourful packaging co-created with Gohar that, through a series of mysterious scenes, showcases her own imaginative response to the whisky and its complex layers of flavour.  

Available from September 2026, this new edition of Between You is all about creating a conversation in flavour, bringing together the expertise of Highland Park’s Master Whisky maker Marc Watson with the visionary imagination of Gohar—one of the most exciting talents in contemporary design and lifestyle.  

CRAFTED TO INSPIRE 

To create Between You and I x Laila Gohar, Highland Park Master Whisky Maker took inspiration from Gohar’s Egyptian Heritage, sampling over 80 casks to seek out notes that would prompt powerful memories and associations when she tasted it.  

The resulting 17 Year Old Single Malt offers an invigorating interpretation of Highland Park's signature style, balancing bright fruit and sweetness with the distillery's signature subtle aromatic peat smoke. After maturing for eleven years in refill casks, the whisky spent its final years in highly active, unseasoned American oak chosen for its ability to amplify the expressive notes of orange blossom, leather and warming spice. 

“Working on Between You and I was an opportunity to step into Laila’s universe and create something deeply personal for her. We drew from exceptional Highland Park casks to create a flavour that would feel like home for Laila, reminiscent of Egypt, underpinned by the subtle aromatic peat smoke and sweetness that define our whiskies,” said Marc Watson, Master Whisky Maker for Highland Park. “It was exciting for me to share this whisky with Laila and hear of how it sparked her imagination, and I can’t wait to see what flavours, memories and associations it’ll spark in others.”  

A FEAST FOR THE IMAGINATION 

Laila Gohar was the first person to taste this whisky, which unlocked a series of vivid cinematic scenes in her imagination. For her, its leather notes evoked ancient artifacts in a Cairo museum. Fragrant orange blossom brought to mind a sun-drenched Andalusian courtyard. Warming vanilla took her to the slopes of a tropical volcano beneath the night sky. These imaginative worlds became the foundation for the visual identity of this release which arrives in surreal packaging, co-created with Gohar, that combines hand-drawn illustrations by Silja Goetz and layered visual references inspired by her imaginary narratives.  

Inside each pack, a booklet replaces conventional tasting notes with evocative vignettes, written by Gohar, which invite drinkers to experience the whisky not just with the taste buds but with the imagination.  

A COLLABORATION WITH LAILA GOHAR 

Laila Gohar is renowned for transforming food into surreal, theatrical art that blurs the lines between cooking, performance, fashion, and design. Her aesthetic combines humor, craftsmanship, and high-concept hospitality — from butter sculptures to towering seafood displays and eccentric tablescapes that feel part feast, part exhibition. She’s often described as one of the defining figures behind the rise of food as visual culture across fashion and contemporary art circles. 

“My work is all about reimagining objects, ingredients, flavours, creating something familiar but totally unexpected to spark curiosity and conversation. That’s why this collaboration felt so natural,” said Laila Gohar. “The whisky Marc created for me immediately sparked my imagination. I was taken to my early days in Egypt, to the slopes of a volcano, and to a courtyard in Andalucia, and those are the worlds we’ve been able to share across the packaging. This is something that feels very personal to me, and something I can’t wait to share with the world.” 

PRICE AND AVAILABILITY 

Between You and I by Laila Gohar will be available globally from 24th September 2026, with a recommended price of $165 USD.   

ABOUT HIGHLAND PARK 

Highland Park was founded in 1798 in Kirkwall, Orkney, by local church beadle and part-time whisky smuggler Magnus “Mansie” Eunson. Over 200 years later, we’re still making whisky on the same site in Kirkwall, Orkney—and still following Mansie’s example by doing it our own way. 

Our award-winning whisky is renowned for its unique flavor character fully complex, and expressively deep, which finely balances sweetness of sherry-seasoned oak cask maturation with a subtle hint of smoke from Orkney’s heather-infused peat. Highland Park 18-Year-Old has been named “Best Spirit in the World” on multiple occasions by American whisky expert. F Paul Pacult and was ranked the #1 “Greatest Single Malt Scotch Whisky of the 21st Century” by Robb Report. 

Highland Park’s Orkney provenance is what makes us different by nature. Far from the mainland and far from the mainstream, we continue to be inspired by our island home’s awe-inspiring landscapes, temperate climate and creative culture—all of which informs the way we combine craft and creativity to make whiskies that can’t be replicated anywhere else on earth.

ABOUT LAILA GOHAR 

Laila Gohar is a New York–based artist and creative director whose work sits at the intersection of food, design, and performance. Known for transforming edible materials into sculptural compositions, she approaches food as both medium and message—enchanting, tactile, and visually driven.