Saturday morning dramming - Talisker

When I had a relaxing friday evening, and wake up fresh and well slept on a saturday morning, it's time for a couple of morning drams. It's the perfect time. My palate hasn't been ruined yet by my the daily do's. I am in for a treat. A malt whisky will give it's full flavour to me. This is exactly when I get the most out of a dram.

Stein Inn, great food and real ales

Todays drams are a couple of Talisker. Talisker is located in a remote bay on the island Skye on the westcoast of Scotland. The mountainous island itself is worth the travel alone, and then you get a distillery thrown in for a bonus!

Skye

Talisker is well known for it's 10yo, which is a part of Diageo's classic malts range

The distillery have a visitor center and offers an extended tour which includes a wee vertical tasting. Recently Diageo has started offering distillery only bottlings at select distilleries. This includes amongst others Oban, Lagavulin and also Talisker. These bottlings are NAS (no-age-statement) and bottled at cask strength

1. Talisker 53.9%

This is a very maritime whisky. I can't recall having a more maritime whisky actually. It got a sense of seaside harbour to it. Salt, water, fish, harbour. If you are well-acquinted with the 10 year old distillery bottling, this whisky is more or less as expected. More peaty, sharper due to higher ABV and more peppery. Pepper (it's black pepper!) and palateprickling is more or less the Talisker characterisitics. At least when its presented at younger ages. This is a very good dram, another proof to me that Talisker is best at young ages, where the distillery character is at full impact

Rating 86

(but it's moving towards a 4 really - it's a great dram)

2. Talisker 175th Anniversary 45.8%

(Photo by Duffer)

A vatting of up to 20yo whiskies bottled to celebrate the distillery's 175th anniversary.

Very mellow whisky, the peat is soft, so is the pepper but pepper is more dominant here. This actual makes me think - this is how and old Gordon and MacPhail Speysider vatted with young Talisker would taste :-)

It's very spicy, and the mellowness tends to work in the opposite direction. Add to this some woodyness. This is a fine whisky, but it's not the way I prefer Talisker. I prefer them young, only old Talisker I thought was good was the Gordon and MacPhail 1.1 50yo, but that was more old whisky than Talisker

Rating 85

Thursday, Sue Sellers of Bladnoch Distillery was looking for tasting notes for some of their Dailuaine's released for the Bladnoch Distillery Forum

This made me pop up mine last night and here's my thoughts :

3. Dailuaine 26yo 53.1% cask 4215

Distilled 2/11 1983, Bottled 7/7 2010 for the Bladnoch Distillery Forum

Colour : Hay, pale straw

Nose : a delightful mix of classic dried and fresh fruits, wine and wood. By classic sherry fruits I mean raisins, plums etc. I thorogh search reveals a bit of Vanilla. The fruity/spiced woody nose makes this a dream to nose. I really enjoy it

Palate : It delivers like a minty ex-bourbon, but the palate is soon dominated slightly by raisins and wood bitterness. The delivery is sharp on the alcohol and the bitterness might be too much for some. Me ?. I love the mint/sherry combinations :-)

Finish : Quite long and like a fresh-mint

Overall this whisky has an unusual property. You often see E150'ed whiskies that looks like a sherry cask, but when you taste it the colour and taste doesn't match at all. You can say the same here, but you don't feel fooled, but surprised. This whisky doesn't look like an ex-sherry cask whisky, but it sure taste like one. Colour adjusted with chlorine ? :-)

Rating 81

Bladnoch Tasting Notes here : http://bladnoch.wordpress.com/