Highland Park’s latest whisky collaboration starts with an unusual and thought-provoking design brief: What does a flavor actually look like? In the spirits industry, visual identity typically follows the liquid, serving as a straightforward vehicle for tasting notes, heritage, and region. But for the second edition of its exploratory Between You and I series, the renowned Orkney-based distillery decided to invert that traditional relationship entirely. To achieve this, Highland Park partnered with New York-based artist and creative director Laila Gohar to craft a 17-year-old single malt alongside a visual identity shaped entirely by the memories, sensory associations, and imagined places the liquid conjured for her.
The ambitious project required a deeply collaborative process between art and distillation. Highland Park Master Whisky Maker Marc Watson sampled more than 80 different casks while developing the release, taking direct inspiration from Gohar’s Egyptian heritage and her distinctive artistic vocabulary. The resulting whisky reflects a meticulous maturation strategy designed to match those sensory prompts. The spirit spent its first 11 years maturing in refill casks before being transferred into unseasoned American oak. This finishing period was carefully selected by Watson to amplify specific aromatic and flavor notes, notably orange blossom, rich leather, and warming spice, which weave seamlessly alongside the distillery’s characteristic, subtle peat smoke.
However, it is Gohar’s unique creative response to those very flavors that gives the collaboration its striking visual character and conceptual depth. When she first nosed and tasted the whisky, the leather notes did not merely suggest oak or traditional cellars; instead, they brought immediately to mind ancient, timeless artifacts resting quietly within a Cairo museum. The bright orange blossom note transported her senses to a sun-drenched Andalusian courtyard, filled with warmth and architectural light. Meanwhile, the underlying vanilla pulled her away entirely, transporting her imagination to the dramatic slopes of a tropical volcano standing silently beneath a velvety night sky.
These evocative scenes ultimately became the foundational blueprint for the packaging, which was co-created with Gohar. The physical presentation pairs intricate hand-drawn illustrations by artist Silja Goetz with layered, tactile references to the various imagined worlds Gohar visited during the tasting process. Rather than relying on stark minimalism or predictable Scottish heritage tropes, the design leans heavily into storytelling, color, and texture, establishing an immediate dialogue between the drinker and the object sitting before them.
"My work is all about reimagining objects, ingredients, flavors, creating something familiar but totally unexpected to spark curiosity and conversation," Gohar explains, reflecting on her artistic approach and how it translated into the spirits world. "That’s why this collaboration felt so natural."
The conceptual narrative extends far beyond the exterior box and bottle. Inside the packaging, Highland Park and Gohar chose to subvert standard industry expectations by completely removing traditional tasting notes. In their place, drinkers find a bespoke booklet of vignettes written by Gohar herself. This intimate collection of short writings is designed to encourage drinkers to approach the 17-year-old single malt through personal association, emotion, and active imagination, rather than relying strictly on clinical flavor descriptors like peat, smoke, or vanilla bean. By reframing the tasting experience as an imaginative journey, the collaboration invites a slower, more deliberate form of consumption.
The release underscores a growing trend among luxury spirits brands to look outside traditional distilling circles, collaborating with contemporary artists, designers, and culinary creatives to challenge how consumers interact with aged liquids. By bridging the gap between Orkney’s windswept distilling traditions and Gohar’s global, design-forward perspective, the project transforms a standard age-statement release into a multi-sensory art object.
Between You and I by Laila Gohar for Highland Park is available globally with a retail price of $160.
