Last time we had a Talisker, it was anything but a supermarket whisky. This time, it literally is available from supermarkets.
Talisker Skye (45.8%, OB, b. ca. 2025): nose: it reeks of peat and lukewarm pickle water. That could mean brine, and, indeed, it is a tad briny, yet pickle water is more specific: it has a mild sweetness to it, perhaps imparted by sweet-and-sour pickles themselves. Next are aluminium cable trays, metallic, sure, and painted white. Why that is so clear and so specific is a mystery, but it is. Much more, in fact, than the saltier side that emerges, rollmops, pickled herring, pickled onions, all of which are easily missed. In terms of peat, it promises more heat from a kitchen hob than any bold smoke. It is a heat that feels more welcoming with each sniff, warm logs and pickled fish, even if it is not smoky enough to mention kippers. The second nose seems more earthy and pickled yet, with pearl onions, pickled red onions, beetroot kimchi. Cherry-filled chocolate, or cherry-liqueur-filled chocolate appears too, borderline sickly without falling so easily into that trap. Mouth: vaguely fruity upon entrance, it quickly spreads its wings. Here, it is clearly smoky, with mud patties baked in a stone oven, old cigars, berries in a wicker basket by the fire. Chewing reveals pickled garlic cloves, rollmops, briny olives, capers and a drop of ink. The second sip is pumped with cherry liqueur, and that, in turn, is poured on charred chocolate, which generates a thin white smoke. The cherry side is so earthy it is virtually the same as elderberry. Finish: burnt chocolate blended with watercolour. It provides a scorched-earth note that is also a little fruity -- and by "a little," I mean hardly recognisable: burnt oily nuts, burnt cherry stones, overly-roasted elderberry. It is a long finish, bold, peaty to a point, and quite boorish. It has no subtlety to speak of; it does what it does, take it or leave it. That calls for respect, to an extent. The second gulp is warmer yet, and it swaps the watercolour for clay. Here is a potter's workshop in which the potter is making amphorae out of clay (obvsl) that he keeps moist by splashing it with Greek red wine. Just like said wine, this sticks to the gob forever and a day. Honest dram. 7/10 (Thanks for the sample, Rock View Guest House)
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