Talisker Natural Cask Strength 1985 Maritime Edition 27 Year Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky 750ml
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Vintage 1985 Maritime Edition one of only 3000 bottles individually numbered. Bottle #0814 For over 150 years the international Maritime Signal Flag System has ben used to send messages between two ships or between ship and shore and are still used today primarily to decorate ships for ceremonials and other festive occasions. Signal Flags consist of a set of 26 different square flags each representing a particular letter of the alphabet plus 10 pendents representing the numbers 0 to 9. With these 36 nautical signal flags, any message can be spelled out for all to see. SKYE In the stormy northern shadow of the Cuillin mountain range on the remote Isle of Skye, flanked by a narrow single-track road that links a scattered community to the world, the River Drynoch winds through a wild glen to reach the sea at Loch Harport. In 1745, after the rout at Culloden, the Jacobite leader Bonnie Prince Charlie came famously to Skye with Flora MacDonald, en route to exile in France. Syke had been home to small communities for thousands of years. There is evidence of iron-age occupation, and recent discoveries have suggested the presence of people in Neolithic times. Integration of the native Picts with later Celtic and Scottish immigrants gave birth to the clan system. It was Clan MacLeod land on which Talisker distillery was built in 1830. SEA Ever since, a mere handful of men have crafted one of the world's great malt whiskies here in the Gaelic-speaking village of Carbost on the shores of Loch Harport. Everything on Skye is influenced by the sea, from its maritime climate to the lives of the islanders. Remote even today, Skye looks toward the sea. Tucked away beside Loch Harport on the Mininish peninsula in the west, Talisker distillery faces the loch and is a welcome destination for sailors. For more than a decade it welcomed the Classic Malts Cruise, a West Coast sailing event. When filled with yachts large and small, Loch Harport is a magnificent sight. Talisker is made by the sea in every sense. We live beside it, and from our earliest beginnings the distillery's destiny has been shaped by it. This Special Limited Edition 27 year old TALISKER, bottled at natural cask strength, celebrates our connection with the sea, and so with mariners around the world. PLACE Lying on the 57th Parallel at the latitude of Alaska, Talisker is the only distillery on the Isle of Skye and one of the most northernly in Scotland. It was not easy to operate in the age before roads: Islay, much closer to Glasgow and more fertile, could support eight distilleries or more. The low hills around Talisker were formed by lava flows during the volcanic formation of the majestic Cuillin mountain range, in whose shadow the distillery lies. Cultivation began around two hundred years ago as the Talisker estate (the name comes from the Norse, Thalas Gair, meaning "Sloping Rock") cleared fertile land for sheep farming. They resettled tenants on rocky land beside the sea. A whisky distillery needs a ready highway to market: it also needs water of another kind. Both could be found here. Soft, peaty process water rose from fourteen springs in Hawk Hill (Cnoc san Speirage). Each hour 20,000 gallons of cooling water ran down the Carbost Burn. The stage was set. PEOPLE The founders of Talisker distillery were MacAskills, of Viking descent. The family built a house visited in 1773 by the great essayist Dr. Samuel Johnson and his biographer, James Boswell. Talisker House, Johnson wrote, was "... situated very near the sea, but upon a coast where no vessel lands but when it is driven by a tempest on the rocks. Towards the land are lofty hills streaming with water-falls..." In 1825, Hugh MacAskill took over the runing of the Talisker Estate. Hoping to drive income and having a ready supply of labour, he soon hit on the idea of building a distillery. In 1830 he leased a site at Carbost, raised £3,000 (his brother Kenneth ran the bank in Portree) and built his new distillery. The former Minister, Roderick Macleod, declared it "one of the greatest curses that... could befall (this) or any other place." Fortunately, TALISKER is more popular today; the distillery is a key part of the island's economy. LEGACY After the early years a new owner, Alexander Grigor Allan, took TALISKER to success. It could justly be claimed that "there is not a whisky gets a better reputation in the market." The author, Robert Louis Stevenson, crowned TALISKER "The King O' Drinks." By the close of the nineteenth century TALISKER was one of the largest selling single malt whiskies. The distillery now had its own pier, purpose-built tramway and tied cottages for the expanding, if still small, workforce. Then, as now, they spoke Gaelic. TALISKER continued in production throughout the difficult 1930s. It felll silent only when barley supplies were restricted during the Second World War. Throughout, traditional methods of distilling were followed; the design of equipment and craft skills using remains unchanged to this day. Even in the late 1950s supplies and outbound cargo came and went in the distillery's coaster, M.V. Pibroch. By 1960, however, change was in the air. It came from an unexpected direction... FIRE Whisky at full strength is highly inflammable and stories are legion of fires in the early years of distilleries, when stills were heated directly by coal fires raging below. In November 1960 it happened at Talisker. As the spirit reached boiling point during distillation the whisky ran unchecked from the still onto the coal fire below. Immediately a blaze began, intensifying as more whisky fed the flames. The burning whisky flowed out over the surface of Loch Harport, seeming to set it on fire. The still house having been destroyed, an exacting reconstruction began. Exact copies, still heated externally by coal furnaces, replaced the five stills lost. Only in 1972 did modernisation reach Talisker, as the stills were converted to steam heating and the original floor maltings were closed. Restoration work and further improvements in the 1990s brought a new copper mash tun and five new wooden worm tubs. From the ashes, a new Talisker had arisen, just like the old. PROCESS TALISKER comes from a special place and our water is special too. But what we do with these bounteous natural advantages counts even more. Unusually, we use two wash stills but three spirit stills, kept in their traditional shape, design, material and configuration. The wash stills are unique. Lyne arms trap some of the vapour from distilling, then a small copper pipe carries it back to the stills for a second distillation. This partial double-distillationincreases the interaction of the spirit with the copper in the stills. It gives a light, fruity edge and a real depth of flavour. To condense the vapour, we pass it through wooden 'worm tubs' out in the open air. They cool the spirit slowly, developing the whisky's body. Finally, the whisky is aged in oak casks, in naturally ventilated warehouses. The majority are American Oak refill hogsheads. Many distilleries bottle at 43% ABV, or even 40%. TALISKER has always been bottled at a minimum of 45.8% ABV. Why? Because it tastes better. TASTE This natural cask strength TALISKER, distilled in 1985, is one of a series of special limited releases made each year in tiny quantities to showcase TALISKER at its supreme best. A mature 27 year old, it ranks alongside the most sophisticated of its peers yet has an added, cool self-assurance and even an edge of darkness to tempt the palate. Softly sweet at first, with buttery pastry and rich, dark chocolate, the nose soon offers raspberry juice and waft upon waft of homely smoke. Through this rises the oaty aroma of home-made chocolate chip cookies, offset by sharp mixed-berry jam and ripe red apples. Water suffuses all with sweet smoke and liberates mysterious volcanic fumes. Medium-bodied, cool, salty and sweet, the flavour exudes a rich maltiness. Whilst this is easy to enjoy at 56.1% ABV, adding a little water brings up a pleasing texture with gentle, fragrant smoke. The finnish is long and silky-smooth, with more of that drying, rich and soft dark chocolate.
Product Specs
Alcohol by Volume | 56.1% |
Country of Origin | Scotland |
Region | Isle of Skye |
Year | 1985 |
UPC | 088076179011 |
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