The Talisker 8 Year Old 2020 Special Release

30 ml of bottled feist

Tasting notes:
At 57.9%, this one is unmistakably young and feisty. But at the same time, the nose opens with more sophistication than one would expect from and 8 year old: there are magical perfumes of the spheres dancing all over something that once probably resembled peat, but now is cleaner, finer, and coated with the thinnest veil of cracked rose pepper. Still, there’s something in there that smells like a musk-dusted foot traipsing through a dense fog. The combination is, perhaps surprisingly, wonderful.

The mouth is huge, firing spice over every bit of the palate that hangs around through the finish. There’s ginger, a hint of clove, and cinnamon coming together in the most pleasant, but also the most complex of ways. One could really study this one. And coming from us, that’s high praise, especially for such a young’un.

The finish isn’t terribly long, but it’s terribly good: a bonfire of the spiceties. Vegetal spice erupts like the burp from a volcano that’s been properly seeded with members of the super-rich. Actually, exhaling the finish makes one feel a bit like Smaug after starting a barbecue joint. This is Talisker at its youthful best.

   

Rating:
On the scale of spices coming together in interesting ways–

The Talisker 8 Year Old 2020 Special Release is the abiding joy that is Indian food–Despite what some say, the combinations of spices in Indian food are alluring, exciting, and often wonderfully piquant. One could spend a lifetime studying it and all of its variations. And one could fill a lifetime just considering all of the many, many things that would be worse to do. 

   

   

                                                                                      —Stephen

   

   

–Our thanks to Diageo for the sample!

 
 

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