This year Diageo created its Special Releases 2024 as a second edition of the Spirited Xchange theme. It is still a cask strength series which revolves around uncommon cask types. We start with Talisker, usually a reliable component – it appeared over twenty times in this series already.
For the Talisker 8 Year Old ‘Tidal Churn’ (as a non-native English speaker I had to look that up) they used stone-spun and lightly re-toasted cask. Quite an elaborate description. The barrels’ original char layers were polished away by rocks and water, but I’m not sure how to understand this exactly. I believe wet stones go inside and then the cask rotates, creating gentle erosion. Afterwards they re-toast the oak to bring out fresh vanilla and fruit flavours.
Talisker 8 yo ‘Tidal Churn’ (58,7%, OB 2024, stone-spun and lightly re-toasted casks)
Nose: firmly coastal, with hints of sea breeze, wet rocks and echoes of iodine. In a second layer there are lemons and unripe pears. As time goes by, whiffs of vanilla cake keep growing stronger. There’s only light peat, overtaken a little by oak spice. Overtaken by alcohol as well, I’m afraid, as it’s quite hot and peppery.
Mouth: now more peat smoke comes out. A nice peppery warmth (still some alcohol heat too), with plenty of saline elements, oysters and smoked lemons. A nice creamy sweetness in the background, along with apples, before returning to more mineral and ashy notes. The saltiness becomes louder towards the finish.
Finish: quite long, with a peppery and minty freshness. A mild green leafiness in the end.
Like almost every Talisker, this is very decent. On the other hand these slightly weird casks don’t offer a unique fingerprint, which leaves us wondering why this was selected. In fact I don’t understand why Diageo keeps insisting on so many 8 year old Taliskers as ‘special releases’ – none of them were truly impressive and the 15 Years (2019) or even the 11 Years (2022) were so much better. Available from The Whisky Exchange and Master of Malt, among many other retailers.