The Ilse of Skye sits in the Hebrides sea along the north west coast of Scotland and is home to the Talisker Distillery, this is one of Diageo’s “Classic malts”. Although Talisker is on the Isle of skye most everyone lists it as a Highland malt but geographically speaking we’l refer to it as an Island malt. Talisker was founded in 1830 by Hugh and Kenneth MacAllister, the sons of the local Doctor and remains the only distillery on the Island.
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There is some sordid history here; the brothers transferred the lease to the North of Scotland Bank in 1848 who sells it to Donald MacLennan for five hundred pounds in 1857 who then puts it up for sale 6 years later and sells to John Anderson who in 1879 is then imprisoned for selling non-existing casks of whisky. Between then and 1930 the distillery is transferred 5 more times.
At the end of 1960 a fire broke out at the distillery ceasing production for nearly 2 years. There are a number of distilling peculiarities with Talisker, Diageos number 2 selling single malt, and only a small amount of production is aged on the Island.
