Talisker 10yo
Official Release | 45.8% ABV
Score: 6/10
Good stuff.
TL;DR
A really enjoyable whisky, despite the tinkering
Life comes at you fast.
From the dense morning mist, ethereal and dreamlike, does the towering, jagged silhouette of the island’s formidable mountain range appear - and our breath is collectively stolen in a heartbeat.
The moment we soared over the perilously steep road bridge that connects the Isle of Skye to the mainland, we knew we’d fall in love with Scotland all over again - the resulting two weeks in a cold, quiet November off-season would do nothing to change that. Our journey to this place started at the conclusion of a weekend that changed our lives - we were married on the banks of Loch Awe.
It’s with an almost arresting quickness that the landscape through the padded frame of our car windscreen shifts. There’s something about Scotland’s islands, whether it be the rough, sweeping roads, the abrupt altitude changes or the proximity to the sea, that reaches into my soul and says: “This is home”. I’ve such an unshakable affinity to our western Hebridean outposts that I genuinely pang to go there.
The spine-like transit system on Skye snakes along the northern coast through Breakish, Broadford and Dunan, before darting westward at Sligachan or continuing northwards to Uig. It’s here that the Black Cuillins appear in the restricted windscreen view and our eyeballs start leaking. Those abrasive rocky routes, so fanatically loved by hardcore hillwalkers, will tear holes in your expensive gloves and remind you that it’s to the hard, uncompromising Earth that we will all eventually return - at incredible speed if you put a foot wrong up there. Over Sgùrrs Banachdaich, Dearg (if you’re brave), Alasdair, nan Eag and Bheinn does the contour wind, forming a semi-bowl shaped transitioning path over one of Scotland’s most evocative, challenging and dangerous Munro ranges.
At the foot of these volcanic forms, hidden away for tourists to discover, are the fairy pools - crystal clear pockets of vivid green and blue fresh water fed by the flowing waterfalls of the Cuillins - and a great place to swim if you can brave the icy cold water. The branch of road we are taking begins at the path to the pools, but we’re headed further north.
Soon our journey, undulating through patches of forest one second then barren gorse land the next, splits off once again - each time we divert, the road gets thinner, more twisting and the separation of body and mind from the rigours of modern day living increases a little bit more. Where we’re heading, the road ends at a cliff edge - our destination is on the outskirts of Carbost.
Loch Harport, a thin sea loch on the lower western edge of Skye, stretches out for miles and we scour the distant shoreline for a little cottage called Calath. It’s a modern and simple house design that’s becoming synonymous with Scotland’s Highlands and islands - white rendered walls, black slate roofs, large picture frame windows and strips of slowly silvering cedar wood. As we drive towards what could be our dream home and what would be ours for the next two weeks, we pass a far larger, more industrial white rendered building, with tall, dark letters that read “Talisker”.
can anyone see Skye?
This was back in 2012, a time before I was onboard with whisky. In fact I was at the early stage of getting into wine and having saved up a load of Air Miles, I spent it all on many crates of wine to bring with us for a truly fabulous honeymoon of opulent excess. I packed it into our little car and drove it all the way up to the edge of our Scottish lands. As is the norm with events of high pressure, the body has a way of suspending all impending illnesses until you’re through the danger, and then without any warning, you’re flat on your back and asking for the commendation of the dying to be administered. We both would, on day one of our honeymoon, welcome such illness with weary simpers and those crates of wine would travel, untouched homewards again in two week’s time.
Skye in November is quiet - nothing is open and no one is around, for it’s off season and the islanders are battening down the hatches for the uncompromising winter months. We mustered the strength to trudge over to Portree in the snow multiple times, and enjoyed the places that were open - a hotel/restaurant, the Co-Op supermarket, a candle shop and some boutiques that were clinging on to the winter tourist trade. We took a tickle down to Glenbrittle and attempted unsuccessfully to fly a kite in bitter winds. We spent a few days driving without any real destination and letting the island’s incredible scenery entertain us. We made our way to a small pottery in Edinbane but owing to their kiln erupting and burning down half the shop, it wasn’t open for business.
I contracted conjunctivitis in my left eye, probably from the snot blasting out in every direction from both barrels. And then, with a downward curling of the lips and an upwards lifting of the eyebrows, it was suggested we go for a tour at the nearby distillery. We walked down in the warming winter sunshine and realised just how close the Talisker distillery was to our wee house - you could smell the draff on the wind. A very steep hill lead down to the distillery which sits almost at sea-level surrounded by higher land and before long we were inside and had booked on a tour. From what I can remember, it was a short tour and the vision of red brick and wood panelling everywhere seems to pervade my memory banks. The tasting at the end in the gift shop was similarly brief, with a dram for each of us presented on an upturned cask. One thing I do remember is tasting the whisky and thinking that while I loved the smell, with similar intensity, I hated the taste. The guide suggested adding water if we were struggling and we both drowned the living daylights out of it. By the end, it was like a watery highball.
We bought some wee bottles for our dads to thank them for their efforts during our wedding and headed back up the hill to the house. It wasn’t long before our sniffling noses and barking throats gave rise to the idea of hot toddies - and the Talisker 18 bottles which were purchased as gifts, were uncorked with haste. At that time Talisker 18 didn’t cost what it does now so using this spirit for a warming drink to make us feel better wasn’t really an event. Everyone relax: We replaced the gift bottles… we’re not animals.
I certainly didn’t think then that a decade later I’d be writing about my obsession with the uisge beatha, and all that it’s given me in the almost two years I’ve been drinking it. Yet it would be precisely 10 years later during the celebrations for our milestone anniversary that I found myself alongside Mrs Crystal at a Jazz bar in Edinburgh drinking Talisker 10 and thinking how strange life really is.
“At last, across the weary faem,
Frae far, outlandish pairts I came.
On ilka side o’ me I fand
Fresh tokens o’ my native land.
Wi’ whatna joy I hailed them a’ -
The hilltaps standin’ raw by raw,
The public house, the Hielan’ birks,
And a’ the bonny U.P. kirks!
But maistly thee, the bluid o’ Scots,
Frae Maidenkirk to John o’ Grots,
The king o’ drinks, as I conceive it,
Talisker, Isla, or Glenlivet!”
Review
Talisker 10yo, official bottle, 45.8% ABV
£40 & wide availability (£28 Black Friday deal as reviewed)
We frequented a number of places that night, most of which served me whisky in straight-sided glasses. It’s no secret I’m a glass fanatic and that I hate these for whisky drinking - even if it is to recline on the sofa, dram in hand to watch Ugly Betty box sets like someone we know. Not naming names but his name is Wally.
The dram selections that night were middle of the road stuff and included Auchentoshan Triple Wood. I tried to get a dram of Compass Box Spice Tree but I settled for an Old Pulteney 12 instead.
Fast forward to Black Friday - a damning testament to humankind’s desperation and the one day in the year where products are discounted so heavily that fist-fights in Walmart ensue and cynical abuse of pricing integrity leads up to the big day. Some clever sausages in retail stick the price of their wares up £40 in the days approaching Black Friday and then “discount” them to the normal price on the big day, with fanfare and ribbons. Maybe I’m the cynic…
Cynicism didn’t play a part in my purchase of this Talisker 10 from Amazon, but a “guilty by association” charge certainly did - I capitalised on the consumerism ming-fest and global-warming contributor by snaffling a bottle of Hebridean whisky for £28 which included free next-day delivery. I felt a bit dirty but not dirty enough to stop me from buying it. At that price, I’m incapable of not buying it.
Nose
Very soft, gentle sweet smoke. It arrives in fleeting wafts among sweet wood, cinnamon and a thin thread of raspberry tartness. Mineral earthiness with a salty overview. Chalk. Sweet perfume and toffee shortbread. Fish and chip shop downwind.
Palate
The sweet smoke carries through on to the palate and rapidly dissipates to rubber balls and a sweaty moustache - salty and earthy. Peppery spice lingers on the tongue.
The Dregs
I spent a lot of my honeymoon staring out the gigantic picture window of our holiday home. This window gave me an unobstructed view of the whole range of the Cuillins and the winter sun was low and pierced through the low cloud in such a way as to illuminate the lower part of the mountain while the upper remained in shade. It was hugely captivating and the constantly shifting vision held my gaze for many an hour.
Ten years. A decade that disappeared so fast I can’t help but release a murmuring of panicked noise when I think about it. But what accomplishments in that time. What devastating loss at the wizened hands of the reaper, grim as it is. What weathered perspective I now hold, and with it a core redefinition of the capacity we have as humans to love. My daughter arrived mid-way through that decade. Two times five means I will survive, and I feel genuinely alive more than I ever have done, despite events viewed through my eyeballs disappearing so fast that I can’t remember if they actually happened or not. Ten years ago I was a newly married idiot working in a job that sapped all the lifeblood from my body, taking little pleasure from riding my motorcycle too fast. Talisker was but a tourist destination on our flu-filled honeymoon - nothing more. How times have changed. How Dougie has changed.
The Talisker in my glass is 10 years old, and it seems fitting that I celebrate a decade of life and marriage with a whisky that was made in the place we visited a few days after tying the knot. In the decade since, I’ve grown to appreciate life in a whole new light, with parenthood framing the bulk of my perspective. Talisker grew in stature among the whisky exciters in that time too, becoming a worthwhile dram for the money asked of it. Diageo owns this distillery as well as 28 others, and according to the Malt Yearbook 2023, they’ve recently completed a refurbishment of the visitor centre. My brain banks spool up and deliver a memory of tired wood-and-glass-clad rooms with threadbare blue carpets (accuracy debatable), and I can’t help but be pleased to read this news. I could certainly do with a refurb.
Despite the love for Talisker over the intervening years and its clear success in the whisky market - Talisker has gone from outputting 500,000 bottles in 2002 to more than 3.2million bottles in 2022. Diageo appear to have looked the golden gift goose in the gummy gap, for prices have jumped abhorrently in this year of post-pandemic recovery. Ten years ago when I bought those hot toddy fillers, 70cl bottles of Talisker 18 commanded circa £70, yet today a bottle will cost you £175. It’s sorely expensive and many people are quite rightly miffed by it all, swearing off Talisker and all they make forever… well, until the prices come back down again.
I’ve not actively avoided Talisker for any reason. I watched the pricing fiasco from the sidelines and joined the raucous chorus against the price hike, despite not having any real hands-on experience. Well now I do and I’m really enjoying it. It has an engaging peppery sweet smoke that carries itself nicely on a bed of caramel and fruity spice. There’s a weirdly synthetic aftertaste that’s bugging me - I experienced this with the Flora and Fauna Blair Athol and Dailuaine too. I don’t know what that means, but there it is. I also don’t have access to the heyday of Talisker 10 when it’s said to have been more flavourful than current bottles. Such is life - we play the cards with which we are given.
This isn’t a whisky I’d normally go for as I always assumed Talisker 10 was like the other middling drams that had been chill-filtered with caramel added. This Talisker is chill-filtered and caramel has been added for aesthetics, but it’s confusingly delivered to us at a very specific 45.8% - as near as dammit 46%. Given that Scotch mist - the flocculating magic that caused chill-filtration to be introduced in the first place - only appears below 46%, you have to wonder why Talisker would output a whisky so close to this tipping point and choose the path of chill-filtration instead. Why not just add in the missing 0.2% more alcohol and remove the necessity for filtration at all? It’s tantamount to admitting they know it’s daft, that it really isn’t worth it, but the managers are barking and they just want an easy life.
Strange decisions aside, this is a really pleasing whisky to drink - it has interest and decent length to engage and excite the face and mind. The prospect of Talisker 10 has always been shunted to the background noise for £40 is a lot of money to spend on such meddled whisky. I’d far rather go for an Arran or a Ledaig or spend £5 more and get an Ardnamurchan. But when Black Friday rolled around and I saw this at £28, it was enough to make me buy it and I’m really glad I did. At £28 I’d not hesitate to recommend it, probably actively so.
But when the price of Talisker 10 went back to normal following Black Friday, my reluctance towards Talisker also returned. Where other whiskies can deliver far more flavour (and integrity) for the same price, without all that vanity, Talisker remains stoic in its dedication to the masses. Diageo are in this game to make money, frowny faces from Dramfacers or no. Anyway, it is what it is.
A quick parting note on the label design - it’s brilliant. I really liked the re-designed ragged bottom edge of the label - something I always thought was promoting the rugged, saltwater washed rocky landscape of Skye. Turns out it’s actually a map of the western coastline with Carbost pinpointed and surrounded with gold foiling. It serves as a perfect reminder of our time 10 years ago and how many incredible memories have happened since. For that I can’t help but like this wee whisky, even if the spirit quite clearly has a lot more to give.
Score: 6/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. DC
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Other opinions on this:
Dramface (Hamish & Gallie’s Review, June 2020)
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