Talisker 1947 Gordon and MacPhail 35 Year Old Decanter

For a long time, Talisker was the sole distillery on Scotland’s iconic Isle of Skye. Renowned for the quality of its output, the distillery has rarely changed hands, joining DCL (now Diageo) back in 1916. Despite this, releases were not the most common. An 8 year old was bottled officially and Gordon & MacPhail produced what are now classic and sought after vintage bottlings under official license from the distillery. When a 10 year old expression became a founding pillar of United Distillers’ Classic Malts range, the popularity of the distillery exploded, and it is now one of the most revered and exported in Scotland. As such, independent bottlings like this are scarce, and particularly sought after when they appear. 

Although their access to casks of Talisker has dried up in recent years, Gordon & MacPhail regularly bottled these "eagle label" releases through the 1970s and 1980s. These are regarded as being of exceptional quality, and are highly sought after.

This 35 year old is a 1947 vintage, produced for the Sestante Import company. Ernesto Mainardi was a former employee of Co. Import, Pinerolo, and was inspired to bottle these crystal decanters based on similar bottlings of Macallan that they had produced. The Sestante decanters were Edinburgh crystal, and Mainardi estimates he produced around 3500 of these over the years.