Today we have under the limelight the expensive of all Talisker NAS releases of the last decade. Most of those releases are reviewed in the blog (except Dark Storm, not sure why it’s missing tho!) but Talisker Neist Point is the one that I couldn’t bother to grab for a review, until now.

Talisker Neist Point is named after the Neist Point Lighthouse in the western most point on Skye Island. It was released as a Travel Retail exclusive, although now you do can get it in some stores, which is a good thing as this market is suffering a lot at the moment due to Covid-19.

As you can see from the links below, It’s not a cheap release. Is this price tag justified?

Talisker Neist Point (45.8%, £90.90/€76.90)

Photo credit: whiskybase.com

Nose: Quite fruity with large dose of tropical fruits, pineapple, kiwi, passion fruits. There’s gentle smoke, honey and vanilla. After a while it becomes very buttery, there’s also some cookie dough. Continue reading →

I don’t think I need to introduce Talisker to you my readers, but it’s a review way long overdue as I was always delaying reviewing and publishing the Talisker 25 Year Old 2013 review.

But then I tasted the Talisker 25 Year Old 2017 Release in a blind tasting competition and the opportunity to have a side by side review of both edition was so tempting that I finally gave up and went for it. Let’s check out which edition is better.

Talisker 25 Year Old 2013 Edition (45.8%, 5,772 bottles, £262)

Nose: Soft smoke, honey, dried fruit and then raspberry and strawberry, still quite smoky. Some meat, brine, dry ashes and some tar, red berries juice and red apples peels. After a few more minutes it’s blended together to smoky, coastal and sherry sweetness cocktail. Good Continue reading →

Yesterday was all about Cladach the blended malt in Diageo Special Releases 2018 and today it’s all about the most eagerly waited member of the line up (at least for me) – Talisker 8 Year Old at Cask Strength.

Until now we didn’t see any young Talisker at Cask strength in the Special Releases line up, hence the hype and expectations for this 2009 vintage targeted at the masses and bottled at a hefty 59.4% ABV.

Talisker 2009 8 Year Old (59.4%, £67.50)

Nose: Sweet with honey and pears, then comes soft peat smoke. There’s Crème brûlée, a drop of vanilla, cake dough, soft crushed black pepper, gentle saltiness and minerals. After a few minutes there’s also brine in addition to the salt. Overall quite a mellow and soft nose. Continue reading →

Talisker distillery is restless and so it released another new release – Talisker Skye. It’s the fourth new release in the last two years. Yes, your eyesight is perfect. Read it again, it ain’t no mistake: four new Talisker NAS releases in the last two years.

For a distillery that used to have a very thin yet muscled core line-up, this is quite a big change, doubling their lineup offerings from four whiskies to eight. So what’s the reasoning of releasing yet another (NAS) whisky (beyond the growing demand for single malts)?

This time it looks like they are trying to target a new audience and broaden their customer base with an offer of a softer whisky while retaining the Talisker identity. Lets check if it does work that way:

Talisker Skye (45.8%, £38.95/€31.95)

Nose: Initial notes of peat and pepper, then comes the other half of the equation with vanilla, sweet honey, pears and peaches. After a few minutes, the peat note now seriously lag behinds, the pepper is dimnished and it’s more gentle, round and sweeter. With even more time there’s almost no peat and pepper and it’s mostly sweet and vanilla. Continue reading →

Here were are, deep into weekend when we can sit down and relax with a dram and I reserved a special dram for the latest post in our Talisker appreciation week – Talisker 18 Year Old.

Why wait for the weekend do you ask ? It’s simple – this whisky needs care and time. There’s no rushing when tasting this whisky if you want to enjoy it properly.

Talisker 18 (45.8%, £72.45)

Continue reading →

Time for the one before last review on the Talisker appreciation week – their latest core range official bottling: Talisker Port Ruighe (pronounced Portree).

This one is also a NAS release finished in Port casks after it was matured in American, European Oak refill casks and extra-charred casks.

Maritime and sweet port, will they walk together? Continue reading →

Talisker resides on the Isle of Skye, and is the only distillery on the island (for now). Not like distilleries needs excuses but it’s always a good reason to release new whisky expression. And so did Talisker, back in 2008 they released a NAS whisky (in 2008! way ahead of the curve!)  and named it Talisker 57° North for the Isle of Skye that sits on the line of latitude 57 Degrees North.

Unlike most of their other core range bottlings available today and in the past, the 57 North is bottled in a high and special strength of 57% (and surely it’s no coincidence strength). It was matured exclusively in American oak refill casks and so we’d expect some extra fruity and vanilla flavours here. Does it deliver?

Talisker 57° North (57%, £56.73)

Continue reading →

Talisker appreciation week is in full force and we’re now onto the third Talisker review. Third time’s a charm? No, third time’s a storm!

Talisker Storm is fairly recent addition, released in 2013 and followed by 2 more releases – Talisker Dark Storm and Talisker Port Ruigh. Seems like the market demand and the opportunity to earn more money ‘forced’ Diageo to produce additional expressions as part of the core range.

Three new whiskies in a short span but it doesn’t necessary means that the whiskies are were cobbled NAS whiskies to meet the demand. Or are they? Let’s check the Talisker Storm. Continue reading →

We continue with our Talisker appreciation week and we move on to the next Talisker in line: The Talisker Distillers Edition. The latest edition (2014) was released only last week to stores (on offer for €45 only here) so we’ll review last year edition.

Talisker Distillers edition takes the Talisker spirit and adds 2nd cask finishing using Amoroso casks – sweet Italian fortified wine casks.

How does the smoky Talisker spirit handles the sweet wine finish? Continue reading →

I briefly went through what I already reviewed on the blog and found one big and glaring omission – I didn’t review even a single whisky expression from Talisker. It’s not like I didn’t taste any Talisker whiskies in the past, on the contrary, I have a bottle of Talisker 10 right here and I did taste a few other Taliskers in the past.

So I need to make some amends here, so lets start a Talisker appreciation week where I review a couple of Talisker whiskies, and naturally we’ll start with the core and well known whisky – the Talisker 10 year old.

Talisker 10 year old (45.8%, £35.15 / €30)

Continue reading →