Rich notes of stewed apple and pear with some treacle toffee and hint of marzipan. There’s some subdued smoke puffing away in the background along with cured meat and a touch of liquorice. Much more approachable than the 10yo.
Ah, this is Talisker, all right … there’s that trademark punch of black and pepper and smoke, accompanied by stone fruits and a rich, mouthfilling texture.
On the short side, with the smoke outlasting the fruit.
Definitely the little brother of the 10yo, this is a baby Talisker that wants to be taken seriously, even if it doesn’t quite have the brawn and muscle of its elder sibling.
Size – 70cl
Strength – 45.8%
Starting bid: £39.00
Item condition: New
Auction has not been started yet.
Start On: March 20, 2025 10:00 am
Ending On: March 26, 2025 3:00 pm
After a number of false starts, the distillery was founded in 1830 by Hugh and Kenneth MacAskill. It opened at Carbost in 1831 after they acquired the lease of Talisker House from Clan Mcleod. In 1879, it was purchased for £1,810 (equivalent to £232,500 in 2023) by a firm which became known as R. Kemp & Co. when it had a production capacity of 700 gallons per week. The principal partner was A.G. Allan, Procurator-Fiscal for Elginshire. The other partner was Roderick Kemp, wine merchant of Elgin.
The distillery was rebuilt 1880–87 and extended in 1900. A new lease for the distillery was negotiated in 1892 with the chief of Clan MacLeod ifor an annual payment of £23.12s (equivalent to £3,242 in 2023) and a ten-gallon cask of best-quality Talisker. By 1894 the output was up to 2,000 gallons per week. In 1895 the business was converted into a limited liability company with Thomas Mackenzie as managing partner, but the shares were not offered to the public.
Talisker was acquired by Distillers Company in 1925 and is now part of Diageo.
On 12 August 1948 a fire broke out in the store of the distillery. No whisky was destroyed, but grain in store and over 100 empty barrels were lost.
The distillery was rebuilt again in 1960 after a stillhouse fire completely destroyed the distillery. The distillery operates five stills; two wash stills and three spirit stills. All the stills use worm tubs (condensing coils) rather than a modern condenser, which are believed to give the whisky a “fuller” flavour (itself an indication of higher sugar content). During this early period, the whisky was produced using a triple distilling method, but changed to the more conventional double distilling in 1928. After the 1960 fire, five exact replicas of the original stills were constructed to preserve the original Talisker flavour. In 1972 the stills were converted to steam heating and the maltings floor was demolished. Talisker’s water comes from springs directly above the distillery via a network of pipes and wells.
The malted barley used in production comes from Muir of Ord. Talisker has an unusual feature—swan neck lye pipes. A loop in the pipes takes the vapour from the stills to the worm tubs, which causes some of the alcohol to condense before it reaches the cooler. It then runs back into the stills and is distilled again. Talisker now has an annual output of three and a half million litres of spirit.
Talisker was the favourite whisky of writers Robert Louis Stevenson and HV Morton. In his poem “The Scotsman’s Return From Abroad”, Stevenson mentioned “The king o’ drinks, as I conceive it, Talisker, Islay, or Glenlivet.”
In early 2020, Talisker came under scrutiny after a radiocarbon study suggested Talisker 1863 whisky was produced much later, either between 1957-58 or 2007-2014
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