Talisker 18 Year

Light smoke and burnt orange nose, palate is peaty and bright. Citrus and honey.

Definitely smoother than the 10 with a medium body. Touch of citrus, less peat than the 10 year, and a bit of spice. Great , beautiful scotch!

Color is bright gold, but the bottle does not have an indication of whether its natural, so its safe to assume it isn’t. Chill-filtration is also no specified, so I guess it’s filtered as well. Oh well, at least we have viscosity which is moderately high for this 45.8% ABV dram. The nose is beautifully rich, confident, with butterscotch, molasses, vanilla, melon, apple, and a hint of smoke, pepper, and fresh fruit on the back. Palate is absolutely gorgeous, with notes of caramel, honey, raisins, ripe banana, vanilla, oak, and delicate pit fire smoke. The interplay of sweet and briny in this dram is really amazing, and the balance of flavor is superb. Finish is long, full of vanilla, oak, and fruit notes, again finishing with smoke. Peaty notes in this dram are more complimentary than dominating. This is not your typical Islay malt (it’s actually not from Islay at all - its from the isle of Skye), not is it even a younger version of Talisker itself. I add a splash of water to this dram, and it becomes even more balanced. The arrival is now definitely sweet rather than briny, and the raisin and vanilla notes intensify. Finish becomes more smoky, now with a touch of umami and some iodine, some smoked fish and citrus notes appear on the back. Absolutely gorgeous. Overall, this is a superb dram that would be equally enjoyed by beginners and enthusiasts alike. There’s nothing off putting in this whisky, and everything is very well balanced. Great job Diageo, but I wish you didn’t add the color or chill-filter it so we can appreciate the dram for what it is, which is a lot. Is it worth $190 I paid for it? Probably. Are there as good a drams for this money or less? Most definitely. But I think it’s still worth it.

Check out my video review here https://youtu.be/TQglivn86mg .

Bottled in 2012. This was my second bottle of Talisker 18, and I had a problem with it. My first bottle of Talisker 18 was one of my favorite standard releases. It was just a solid, well-rounded, pleasing whisky, as good as a standard release comes. On opening this bottle, I thought it was equally enjoyable as Talisker 10, which was less than half the price. This did not get better, and when I got down to the last 100 mL or so, it just turned soapy, fractured, and demented. This was my first whisky that actually turned bad after opening, and it had been open for maybe a year and a half. I don’t know what happened. One thing I’ve always noticed about Talisker is that it always tastes best fresh. Talisker 10 starts tasting flatter and flatter the longer it stays open, but I don’t have a problem because it is well priced and so yummy that a bottle of Talisker 10 never lasts more than 6 months. Another thing I recently started to notice about Talisker is that the NAS releases are really, really bad. Just salted plastic melt, pollution-by-the-sea kind of garbage notes that I believe I’m starting to pick up in their finer releases by, perhaps, association? It’s like how watching the Die Hard sequels somehow ruins the original. Talisker 18 noses like a Talisker should. It’s a beautiful aroma balancing sweet, salty, and a pungent medicinal smoke. For me, it is the most recognizable aroma of any distillery. But, for me at the moment, the taste of Talisker is just inconsistent - an often unsettled perturbation of wooden pepperiness and minerality - and I only trust the Talisker 10 to return value for my money today, especially seeing the Talisker 18 exceeding $150 in today’s crazy prices. Score: 0 (forgettable) How much does a bottle cost?: $130-200 How much do I think a bottle is worth?: $80