As with the rest of the Secret Stills range, the distillery where this single malt was produced is a fiercely guarded secret… They do however offer a clue that it was distilled at Carbost on the Isle of Skye. Will we ever solve this mystery?

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.

This was distilled in 1955 and bottled by Gordon and MacPhail circa 50 years later in 2005 from a single sherry butt.

At half a century old, this is a genuine rarity.