Talisker Distillery

This is my second visit to Talisker and having now had an interim visit to Islay I was disappointed in Talisker. Essentially, as the only distillery on the island, it serves as a must for many tourists of which there are many. Owned by Diagio it feels more like a money making machine and lacked the warmth of Islay hospitality. The distillery shop is busy and many opt to purchase products here. As well as Talisker products they also sell other Diagio brands such as Lagavulin, Oban and Caol Isla .
The distillery tour is busy and should be booked in advance and costs 8 pounds per person. An increase from 6 pounds 2 years ago .
The tour is interesting and there is an opportunity for a wee dram at the end. I personally preferred Islay and the fact that there are 9 distilleries they are much more customer orientated.

We stopped here expecting there wouldn’t be a tour, as it listed they weren’t doing them on the website, but luckily we were able to get a tour for the four of us for £8 each. The tour was informative and lasted about 45 minutes, as they take you through each stage of how they make Talisker. I agree with the others in that is it very branded and they don’t offer any tasters in the shop. Unless you do a tour there isn’t must to see. We were able to taste the Talisker Storm at the end, which none of us really liked. We did enjoy the tour and having not visited any other distillery, we didn’t have any expectations. The location is stunning, but it certainly doesn’t have that small distillery feel, as everything does feel very big business for a very small place. The distillery is pretty cool and our tour guide was very knowledgeable, but we left wondering why Talisker is producing so many newer whiskeys, as she explained the Storm, etc. have no ages and after 3 years, the distillers can add whatever flavours they want to achieve a different taste, which is then bottled under a new name. We must prefer the traditional taste of the 10 year for sure. Oh, the ticket also offers £5 a bottle if you want to buy one in the shop.

Auf der Insel Isle of Skye liegt die Destillerie, die mit den ausdrucksstärksten Whisky herstellt, oft als phenolig und medizinisch bezeichnet. Früher mal. Inzwischen sind die Standardabfüllugen viel massentauglicher geworden. Den Standardwhisky gibt es auch zum Abschluss der Führung durch die vergleichsweise kleine Destille. Auch einen Blick inn Lagerraum mit allerhand alten Fässern ist zu erhaschen.
Man ist trotz der abgelegenen Lage auf viele Besucher eingestellt, ein großer Parkplatz steht zur Verfügung. Das Besuchercenter hat ein paar nette Kleinigkeiten mit Talisker Aufdruck und allerhand Flaschen im Angebot. Die Standardabfüllungen kosten genauso viel wie überall und sind in Deutschland sogar billiger. Nur wer 100 Pfund und mehr ausgeben will kriegt alte oder seltene Abfüllungen.
Nett, es mal gesehen zu haben, freundliche Leute, aber nicht für einen Schnäppcheneinkauf geeignet.

The wife and I arrived a few minutes before the 200pm tour.
There was only one space left for this tour and the gal said they can’t go one person over the limit.
Is one person more that big of a deal?
We didn’t want to wait around for an hour for the next tour.
And unlike Oban and Dalwhinnie, they don’t have a tasting bar. Lame.
We looked around for a couple minutes, used the toilets, and left.

Really interesting morning — great tour, very informative and not too long.
The added whiskey tasting at the end was a welcome surprise! And I discovered that I don’t find whisky quite so offensive with water.
The shop is very well stocked and we came away with some stock for the bar at home!

It just wasn’t what I expected.
I want to start by saying that I was a huge Talisker fan going into it. I had a bottle of the no-​frills 10 year kicking around and it was one of my favorites. So consider this narrowly as a review of the distillery and not what comes out of it.
It was just kind of tacky: an entire place obviously and inartfully focused on branding itself. The drive there takes you through a solid four hours of downright stunning middle-​of-​nowhere, and at the end there is this highly stylized experience with an obvious script and lots of iffy graphic design. I don’t know what I expected, maybe four pensioners sitting in an old room pouring you whiskey until you couldn’t stand. I don’t know. Whatever it was, this wasn’t it.
Additionally, some of the other distilleries offer free tours and tastes, but not here. And all you get is a wee dram at the end.
It’s one of the only places I have visited that made me feel worse about the product.

One of many distillieris in Scotland that have sold out to big business and lost their charm in the process, I am afraid. This is one of them. This place has a fabulous location and has been making single malts for generations but the shop is more corporate than I would have expected. It failed to deliver on the unique experience and it was all about selling the whiskey and little or no personal touch. Did not get to do the tour as it was full but probably not a place I would visit again.

When on the Isle of Skye visit the only Malt Whisky distillery there is! Talisker is one of the (now) 12 big Scottish Whisky names. The tour is interesting and you get a dram of whisky at the end of the tour. Talisker is one of the more peaty tasting whiskies and is definitively one of my favorites. Buy a bottle here and you save at least 6 pounds compared to the down town shops. Your entry ticket (6 pounds per person) to the distillery gives you a 3 pound discount and the bottle prices are already some 3 pounds lower to start with.

My advice? Schedule your tour so that it is later in the day. Somehow I ended up touring here at 9:30 in the morning which meant I was drinking Scotch well before lunch. Oh…so you don’t think that’s unusual? You must be a Scotsman!
Our tour started with a generous pour of 10 year old Scotch I liked the fact that they have you taste it two ways– on it’s own and then with a few drops of water to raise the oils (or something like that)
The tour then begins with a discussion and demonstration of each of the parts of the distillery. The tour ends in the gift shop (as all tours do) allowing you to buy discounted product or souvenirs to take home. For this gal– I loved the t-​shirts with the longitude and latitude of the location of the distillery running up the arm. BIG discussion starter every time I wear the darn thing!
Certainly a worthwhile tour if you find yourself on the Isle of Skye.
Oh– and the road to the distillery is a hoot as well. Seems there is a «Tattie bogle trail» (sp?). This is a series of scarecrows lined up at points along the road depicting some of the funniest scarecrows I have ever seen. My favorites had to be the Queen Mother as well as the guy bending over showing some «skin» between his shirt and pants. But Harry Potter is there as well.
Just something to look for along the way!

I have been on many a distillery tour but no-​one has impressed me as much as the woman who led me on a tour around the Talisker distillery. There is no question, however obscure, that she cannot answer.
The tour starts, as it should, with a wee dram in a kind of lounge area filled with old photographs and scraps of tales and legends of Skye and Talisker. I was actually quite glad that the tasting came first because after walking through the distillery the smell had turned me a little nauseous.
We were walked through each part of the working distillery taking in every single part of the process, from the sourcing of spring water to the burning of the barrels. One of the most interesting things I learned was that if Skye goes just a few of days without any rain, they have to shut down. It even takes a couple more days to start back up because they have to allow the natural environment its share of rainwater before they snatch it up for the whisky.
Talisker is the only whisky distillery on the Isle and the location is gorgeous. Well worth making a little time for a visit. You also get 20% of a bottle with your tour ticket.