Skye

Skye is home to only one distillery, but my, what a distillery. One of Diageos finest, Talisker is a highly distinctive whisky with a strong, smoky, peaty flavour because both the malt and the water used to make it are heavily peated.

Talisker was built in 1831 and named after Talisker House which was traditionally the residence of the eldest son of the Macleod clan.

The stills are great onion-shaped kettles, richly gleaming and radiating heat, with ever-narrowing swan-neck tops which gracefully lead their vapours away through the stillroom wall to cool and condense beyond. There are five stills at Talisker, two large ones for the first distillation and three smaller for the final. Their precise size and shape, even the angle at which the swan-neck lies, are vital to the continuing production of spirit with the authentic Talisker signature in aroma and flavour.