Reviews by: Zap
talisker distiller's edition
- Reviewer
- Zap
- Color
- Copper-Gold Alloy, more Copper than Gold
- Nose
- Light peat smoke, leaving plenty of room for the oak ("vanilla"), sweet sherry and malt ("honey") to waft through. A slight note of salt. Bitter, sweet and salty smells combine to give this whisky an appealing complexity that the more aggressively peat-smoked whiskeys lack.
- Body
- Thick, Oily, but not thick enough to be Creamy or Syrupy, opting instead for that certain Silkiness that certain medium-thick bodied whiskies have. The trade-off is that it doesn't fill your mouth the way that a truly "creamy" full-bodied whisky would, but it is certainly in no ways thin or watery.
- Palate
- The dominant impression is one of light, sweet peat smoke that isn't afraid to share the stage with other flavors. The sweet malt and sherry come through strongly, but are balanced nicely by the smoke which prevents them from being too sweat, as does the barley flavor, and the note of sea-salt that you can barely pick up on the nose but which comes through much more visibly on the palate. Once again, the dominant impression is complexity - if you sip on this whisky several times and each time try to focus on a different flavor, you come away with a lot of very distinct, strong impressions. This is a whisky you never have to get bored of, much like dating a woman with multiple personality disorder.
- Finish
- This is what this whisky is really famous for. I haven't experienced the Talisker dry, peppery burn in any other whisky. It will take you by surprise the first time. And the finish is very long -- I'm still tasting it on the exhale, minutes after I swallowed.
When you first start drinking Scotch whisky, you begin with the mild stuff - if only due to its availability. The smoky, peaty island whiskies are an acquired taste that demands a certain degree of refinement that not all individuals possess. Once you have acquired the taste, and separated yourself definitively from the dominant culture of instant gratification and syrupy, neon-colored cosmopolitans that surrounds you, you may remain at this stage - the full-bore, smoky-peaty stage - for many years. But after a time, some whisky drinkers drink so much island whisky that they lose their initial, peaty hunger. They no longer need to prove to themselves that they can handle (and enjoy) the flavors of peat and smoke, and they develop a yearning for a whisky that, without abandoning the island style, might dabble in a little more complexity - and employ the flavor of smoke more as a tantalizing tease that highlights the other flavors that life has to offer. This is when one graduates to drinking Talisker.
red breast 12 year old
- Reviewer
- Zap
- Color
- Copper-Gold Alloy, more Yellow than Red
- Nose
- You pick up: 1. The Oak (which smells like Vanilla) 2. The sweet Sherry and Malt mixing (which smells syrupy-sweet, like maple or honey, as opposed to sugary-sweet) 3. The fermented grain (which smells like rotting fruit, which some call earthiness, and those from the country will recognize as a sort of rotting wet hay or grain smell) 4. A refreshing or "zesty" sour note (which can be compared to citrus, and probably comes from the unmalted grain) 5. I agree that there is a faint note of salt. Overall, all four senses are represented - sweet, bitter, sour and salt. It's quite like how I would imagine a leprechaun would smell.
- Body
- Definitely on the thick end (synonyms include oily, creamy, full or syrupy; and the opposite being thin or watery).
- Palate
- Everything the nose promised. The oaky vanilla comes across strong, as does the sherry-malty sweet mixture, which is a thick or muted kind of sweetness (like brown sugar) rather than cloying. Not harsh in the least, certainly as smooth as any 12-year I have tried and matching many older spirits in this regard.
- Finish
- A long finish, which is very nice, you can still taste it for the better part of a minute after you swallow. It is a warm, sherry-sweet sort of finish.
Overall I get the impression that the pot still enhances the aging somehow. This is a remarkably smooth, oaky and sherry-oaky whiskey; as Nabokov might say it is "very mature for a twelve-year-old." I also found myself surprised at how much I enjoyed it, when I consider myself such a peat-smoke man. But of course, if I wanted that, why would I add an Irish selection to my bar? This is precisely for those days when I want something different. When you combine it with the fact that the pot-still method was practically invented by St. Patrick, I see no reason to buy any other widely available Irish dram.