Talisker 35 has been issued more than once as part of Diageo's annual Special Releases. The first appearance came in 2012, with later releases following in 2014 and beyond. All have been drawn from refill American oak casks and bottled at cask strength without chill-filtration or added colour.
Talisker is the only distillery on the Isle of Skye, founded in 1830 by the brothers Hugh and Kenneth MacAskill on the shore of Loch Harport at Carbost. Its five stills run a peculiar configuration — two wash stills with U-bend lyne arms and three spirit stills — which is partly responsible for the heavy, slightly sulphurous spirit that emerges from the stillhouse and which Robert Louis Stevenson famously called 'the king o' drinks'.
At thirty-five years that spirit has lost most of its youthful aggression. The pepper that defines the standard 10 year old is still detectable but it is no longer the headline; in its place are wax, fruit and the deep maritime character that long warehouse ageing on Skye gives. These older Taliskers are scarce — Diageo has not maintained large stocks of very old island whiskies, and what comes out under the Special Releases banner is the small remainder of casks laid down in the 1970s.
It is a slow, rewarding pour and one of the more dignified expressions of Skye's only whisky.
