Dreaming-of-Islay
Talisker 57º North
Single Malt — Islands, Scotland
Reviewed
October 16, 2017 (edited October 21, 2024)
There's not much information out there concerning its aging or what types of barrel the distillery uses, but this is not just stronger Talisker 10. It is quite different in flavor. On the nose, the overwhelming trio of flavors are brine, herbal and ginger tea, and farmhouse mustiness. My wife picked up on the maritime notes more and described it as "fish scales." There's definitely something to that. The palate is sweeter than the nose and picks up a grapefruit note, but the herbal, ginger, maritime, and peppery kick of Talisker continued barreling ahead at full steam. The finish emphasizes that ginger tea aspect to it and has a tinge of cough syrup flavor that did not thrill me. With a little water, more of the oak and wood tannins assert themselves. This is an expensive bottle, pushing $100, and strikes me as similar to what a cask-strength Ballechin would taste like.
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Nice review. I just snagged a 1L bottle at duty free for $95. Probably going to crack it open soon. YA HEAR THAT LEE...SOON!
Excellent review, Dreaming. I hope to get my hands on a sample of this one someday. This whole travel exclusive stuff is for the birds. I’m gonna send Trump an email and see if he’ll attack travel retail exclusives as being completely un-American. It couldn’t hurt, lol.
Lagavulin, huh? OK, one out of three ain’t bad ;-)
@Telex - It's funny, we had these (and the Weller) at the same bar. But no, we hadn't had anything fishy that day, haha! She is not a Springbank fan, it's 100% Lagavulin for her.
She didn’t have a whole fish at a Lebanese restaurant or something recently by chance, did she? :) I just noticed she got that on the Springbank as well.
It's hard to beat the good old 10 year, isn't it? It's also half the price unless you pick this one up at the duty-free shop.