Talisker Distillery is situated in the village of Carbost, near the shores of Loch Harport. It is the only distillery on the island of Skye.
The peaty process water is drawn from twenty-one underground springs that rise from Hawk Hill (Cnoc nan Speirag) beside the distillery. The hill is home to birds of prey. Twenty thousand gallons an hour of
cooling water from the fast running Carbost Burn fill the five wooden worm tubs outside the still house.
The distillery was nearly destroyed by fire in November 1960. A lapse of concentration led to the leaving open of a valve on the No. 1 spirit still. It was coal-fired at the time. The spirit reached boiling point and a dangerous overflow occurred onto the flames. The fire burned down the still-room, but it was soon rebuilt. Exact replicas of the original stills were made, as it is believed the shape of the stills gives the whisky its own distinct flavour.
The distillery operates two wash stills, five sills and three spirit stills. Talisker uses condensing coils in their stills, as it believed that modern condensers do not give the whisky as full a flavour. Talisker was a favourite whisky of writers Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry Vollam Morton. There is a reception and exibition centre, and a shop.
A number of distilleries still use worm tubs, as experts insist that the character of whisky made using a
worm tub differs much from that cooled in a modern condenser.
The distillery was built in 1830 by Hugh & Kenneth MacAskill, and expanded in 1900. During this time period, the whisky was produced using a triple distilling method. It changed to the more conventional double distilling in 1928.
