TALISKER COMES OF AGE
Jon Allen
travels over the sea to Skye to help Talisker distillery celebrate
its 175th
anniversary.
One sunny Skye afternoon,
eight summers ago, I sat outside the New Inn in Carbost, the village
that is home to Talisker distillery, waiting to meet Dr Nick Morgan,
the man responsible for the soon to be launched ‘Friends of The
Classic Malts’. We were to discuss the content of the first issue of
the newsletter I was to edit. He wanted the distillery up the road
mentioned, but no more than those responsible for the other five
malts in the Classic Malts range.
Every issue since then has
included more and more about the island’s only distillery and its
malts. So much so that the other Classic Malts distillery managers
joke about my editing a house newsletter for Skye’s malts. With the
well publicised limitations on the supply of Oban, and particularly
Lagavulin, it was natural that more marketing effort would be put
behind the whisky most likely to appeal to their drinkers.
As a result, the last decade
has been the most successful in Talisker’s 175 year history.
Bottled at a satisfyingly
powerful 45.8 per cent ABV, Talisker was selected as one of United
Distillers’ Classic Malts in 1988. Twelve years later, there were
independent bottlings around but the distillery only put out the
10-year-old. The following year, the Distillers Edition - given a
short secondary finish in a new cask ‘conditioned’ with Amoroso
sherry - was launched. Now, we can enjoy older expressions from the
distillery’s owners of 12, 20, 25 and, since last autumn, 18-year-
old malts. And in 2004, the 10-year-old distillery bottling won the
Trophy for the outstanding Single Malt Whisky under 10 years old
awarded by the International Wine and Spirits Competition for an
unprecedented fifth time.
Yet, less than a quarter of
a century ago, Talisker’s potential was undervalued by its owners,
despite being one of the few single malts to be reasonably well
known outside Scotland. An article published in 1980 stated that the
“Distillery will fill anyone’s casks…” (This policy may account for
some of the rather dire independent bottlings that were around at
the time.) I really wouldn’t advise turning up with an empty
hogshead at the filling store door nowadays! Back then, only ‘a
small amount of whisky’ was sold directly by the proprietors as
Talisker malt whisky and that was usually at 8 years old. The
distillery was producing around 12,000 gallons (54,000 litres) a
week – and some of that would have been destined for blends.
Nowadays, over 450,000 litres of the 10- year-old are sold around
the world each year.
If you delve into Talisker’s
past, the glory it is currently enjoying will come as no surprise.
Skye’s single malt has been treasured from the days of illegal
distilling. An 18th century trader was quoted as
describing the island’s malt whisky as “Skye champagne.” So
expertise and good ingredients were available before the distillery
was built in 1830.
Fifty years later, Robert
Louis Stevenson wrote that oft-quoted line: “The King o’ drinks as I
conceive it, Talisker, Isla or Glenlivet.” At the time, Islay had
nine active distilleries. Glenlivet on Speyside was the first
distillery to be legalised in 1823 and by 1880 had many rivals
attempting to cash in by adding Glenlivet to their names. It is a
truly remarkable achievement that Talisker, a solitary and
inaccessible island distillery, produced a malt that was compared
favourably with the most highly rated and famous whisky styles.
Today, with more than one
expression now widely available, vertical Talisker tastings are
possible. All expressions issued by the distillery are unmistakably
from the same family. A tasting flight which never fails to get
airborne features the 10-year-old, 18-year-old and 25-year-old. I
asked three friends to help me produce the tasting notes for this
article. One Martin is an aficionado; the other Martin and Steve
won’t mind me describing them as keen novices. All three are
designers, yet they came up with some verbal gems. Only Martin No.1
is a regular Talisker drinker.
To add a little more
entertainment, I made it a blind tasting. The 25-year-old was the
favourite of two (three if you count me), the 18-year-old got the
other vote. Everyone agreed that all three malts were in the
‘excellent’ category.
Tasting should be fun. Too
often there’s a nervousness in the atmosphere. It happens when the
person leading the session doesn’t make it clear that there really
is no right or wrong. Everyone’s opinion matters. The most enjoyable
events are when there is a lively debate, especially after someone
has made an announcement that stuns everyone else into silence. The
award for tasting note of this session went to Steve for his comment
on Talisker 10: ‘The skins of frankfurter sausages, just after
you’ve opened a plastic wrapper’. He’d reduced his dram to around 25
per cent ABV and when I did the same, I got it immediately. I’d
never got that before and I haven’t since. But it made the tasting
for me. (The selected notes we reproduce in the panel are intended
to kick-start your own musings.) After we’d finished the (in)formalities,
I left the bottles around for the participants and some friends who
joined us to help themselves from. Slightly more of the 25 was drunk
than the 18 and more of the 18 than the 10. (I must add that I think
the 18-year-old represents exceptional value.)
With the distillery’s 175th
Anniversary being celebrated this year, there are embryonic plans
for a party in the autumn during the weekend of Celtic Music
sponsored by Talisker. With the enthusiastic Charlie Smith
(transferred north from Edinburgh’s Glenkinchie) managing the place
and the redoubtable Cathie Macleod (who runs the visitor centre –
and a lot more besides) at the helm, the event will undoubtedly do
the distillery proud. If you can’t get a ticket, get yourself up to
Carbost sometime during this year to offer your best wishes - and
snap up a commemorative bottling that should be available from the
summer onwards.
You could fly to Inverness
and hire a car, but if you can spare the time drive all the way. It
will seem more of a pilgrimage for a start. And only by making the
journey that way will you get a reliable impression of just how
remote this distillery is. No financial director these days would
sanction the building of a plant to make an international product in
such a location. If the single malts it produces weren’t so
exceptional, Talisker wouldn’t be celebrating surviving for one and
three quarter centuries.
Now it is more than
surviving: it is flourishing. Happy Birthday, Talisker.
TALISKER TASTING NOTES
These are real notes, created by chaps who enjoy
a dram rather than experts. Compare them to your own. All three
malts were described as ‘top drawer’, ‘magic’ and ‘ace’. Ringing
endorsements.
10- year-old
Nose: Powerful,
smoky, peaty, sweetness. Wonderfully pungent, smoke-accents,
rounded.
Palate: Spicy, Frankfurter sausages (!), liquorice or
aniseed, malty sweetness then very spicy. Lots of layers. Balanced.
Finish Very
peppery, tingling, warming, really long.
18-year-old
Nose: Floral, dried
tropical fruit mix, some peatiness, oak, mustiness.
Palate: Mellow.
Drying like tannic wine. Pepper. A lot bigger than the nose
suggested. Orange zest. Full of character.
Finish: Long.
Medium pepper. Sweetness.
25-year-old
Nose: Candied peel.
Smoke like an aromatic candle. Fruit cake. A faint whiff of sulphur.
Palate: Hot, black pepper, dried fruits especially dates,
smokiness. Big and mouth filling. Surprisingly gentle after a while.
Finish: A long walk through a dry peat bog. Never
ending. Complete perfection.
Talisker Titbit 1
In the first two editions of Jim Murray’s
Whisky Bible, its author hints darkly at increased amounts of
spirit caramel, a legal colouring additive, in 10-year-old Talisker.
Maybe the strain of nosing and tasting so many drams took its toll
on his sensory perception. An unimpeachable source tells me there is
no such change. But recent bottlings may have a higher proportion of
malt older than ten than they used to… but don’t quote me on that.
Talisker Titbit 2
Superannuated lads’ magazine Maxim, voted
Talisker the ‘Best Drink in the
World’. It beat all comers including the expected Tequila,
industrial strength lagers and Cristal fizz. I thought that perhaps
the macho 45.8 per cent alcoholic strength had influenced the
testosterone-fuelled judging. I’d been unfair; it was wrongly listed
in the article as 40 per cent.
Talisker Titbit 3
The still house at Talisker was destroyed by fire
in November 1960 when the night shift didn’t close a valve properly.
The rebuilding - including recreating the stills exactly as they
were - took very nearly two years. Yet not a single person was laid
off. Most helped the builders, and some were seconded to work at
other distilleries.
