label: Talisker

45.8% alc./vol.
Talisker Distillery, Carbost, Isle of Skye, Scotland

We have not finished with the series of single malts of the series Game of Thrones, in which one combines each noble house of Westeros with a distillery of Diageo.

Thanks again to Québec Whisky et Scotch Whiskey Central for having accumulated traffic jams for this tasting even before its release in SAQ!!!

We arrive on Iron Islands, home of the house Greyjoy, and we draw a parallel with Isle of Skye by putting their emblem Creak on a bottle of Talisker Select Reserve, a NAS happily bottled at the usual rate of the distillery, 45.8%.

I would have liked to say here a sausage proverb, but let's keep the guideline and go not with the official words of the Greyjoy family (We do not sow), but rather with their other mantra:

What is Dead May Never Die.

Nose:
Salt peat and sea bottom. Power waves crashing on the rocks. Black pepper and beach ash. Orange and chocolate, all lined with a big belt of old leather.

Taste:
Salted caramel on peat smoke. Sea water, crazy spices, sodden oak. Power with which it is difficult to compete.

Finish:
Long, hot, salty, smoky and assertive. Sea salt, peat, seaweed, sherry, wood. Pepper, caramel and red fruits almost too ripe.

Balance:
Another big island whiskey. To bottle it to the usual degree of the distillery was I believe the best decision of the year. Simply spectacular. Theon Greyjoy would forget the fact that he has no more penis.

Note: ★ ★ ★ ★★

45.8% alc./vol.
Talisker Distillery, Carbost, Isle of Skye, Scotland

It's been a long time since I tasted that, but hey, we start like this. For all their expressions in the range of Classic Malts of Scotland, Diageo We reserve “Distiller's Edition”, more top-of-the-range bottlings, often having experienced a particular finish.

Today it is a Talisker 1992 matured in Amoroso sherry casks. Distilled in 1992 and bottled in 2005, it gives him a good 12 years at least.

As the Scottish scholar, theologian and religious reformer so aptly put it Andrew Melville (1545-1622) said so well:

Empty barrels make the most noise.

Burnished amber of fire and sherry.

Nose:
Beautiful sweet-salty and dry peat, fruits and smoke. Spicy grape touch of sherry. A very mature nose that remains, however, marbled with a great passion. Marmelade.

Taste:
Solid consistency, sherry is here more marked, dates, red fruits, nutmeg, pepper. To make the bridge with the final, a little wind of peat prepares us for what is coming.

Finish:
Here the peat comes spoil us on accents of salt and dark chocolate.

Balance:
A nice trip on the Isle of Skye. We have no difficulty in recognizing the profile of the distillery and we are served a little extra. Good choice to have kept this rate of alcohol, although in any case to do otherwise would not have framed with the other Talisker.

Note: ★★★★★