Colour: Deep gold.
Nose: What a maritime nose! Oysters, brine, iodine, a bunch of salt and some delicate wood smoke paired with a gentle peat.
Mouth: The alcohol integration is perfect and the texture is oily. A lot of wood smoke, smoked salmon, crackling sea salt, brine, lemon zest and a lot of sea water!
Finish: Long and quite intense with a lot of salt, gentle peat, white pepper, candied lemon zest and iodine.

Well there is nothing special to add honestly, it’s a perfect starter without any flaw and even if it’s not very complex, all the other boxes are checked. Furthermore it’s a top notch quality/price ratio!

Score: 90

Colour: White wine.
Nose: Seems to be very immature, like a 3-4yo dram. Smoked barley, bread, pastry with some hints of peat and wood in the background. I didn’t find any trace of rum cask influence at that point.
Mouth: The alcohol integration is not very good but the texture is oily at least. We have some nice and powerful peat, iodine, bread, pastry and smoked barley notes. Nothing else special, it still feels immature and there are still not any trace of rum cask influence.
Finish: Long and in perfect harmony with the mouth, which is quite … meh.

I have to say that I am a bit disappointed by the immature and not very maritime profile of that dram. Still an honest starter of course but hey we were hoping for a powerful and typical CS Talisker here, not a 4yo dram profile!

Score: 86