Why Tactical, and not Talisker?

by **Laurentius** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 7:23 pm

Hello,

In doing a bit of reading on a bottle of Tactical 23y from Old Malt Cask i still have not found any clarity as to why its called Tactical and not Talisker. It seems that it was actually from the same distillery, but that for some corporate polictical reason Douglas Laing and Co cannot use the name Talisker.

Hmm, conspiricy theorist unite.... Maybe Talisker knew the casks were crap....

by **lambda** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 7:44 pm

I don't think any IB can use the name Talisker. That's why you see these whiskies called "Tactical" and "Talimburg" or without a name (but from the Isle of Skye!), making it perfectly clear from which distillery it originates.

Can anybody tell me how the name is protected? Is it a clausule when casks are sold or is the name itself somehow protected?

by **Thomas H.** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 9:19 pm

We had a little chat about this at Glenfarclas, and here's the real problem....

A lot of caskes are being sold of for the blends, and a lot of the IB'ers get their casks from them. So it's very difficult to stop that from happening. There isn't a distillery that will sanction the blends by stopping their sales to the blends, because generally speaking, 90% of what a distillery produces is being sold of to the blends. They won't risk losing that income.
At Glenfarclas, they do not allow IB'ers to put the name Glenfarclas on anything they put out. It still happens, lawsuits follows, but lessons are not learned.

by **kildalton** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 9:25 pm

I've also heard that from next year Ardbeg too will adopt the same behaviour and that they won't be selling casks to IB anymore.
I'm not sure but the source is quite reliable.
If anyone know more...

by **Mr Fjeld** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 11:20 pm

kildalton wrote:I've also heard that from next year Ardbeg too will adopt the same behaviour and that they won't be selling casks to IB anymore.
I'm not sure but the source is quite reliable.
If anyone know more...

I would say what you write is very likely given the fact that LVMH is extremely protective about their brands. Expect to see a price hike (well, that's my theory anyway) on the standard expressions such as Ardbeg Ten and Glenmorangie 10 ....... or maybe not given their huge sales on both the domestic market and abroad......

Christian

by **duckmcf** » Tue Oct 03, 2006 1:02 am

Mr Fjeld wrote:..... Expect to see a price hike (well, that's my theory anyway) on the standard expressions such as Ardbeg Ten and Glenmorangie 10 ....... or maybe not given their huge sales on both the domestic market and abroad......

Christian

Here in Australia I've already seen a AU$10 price hike (from AU$65 to AU$75) on Ardbeg 10yo. The mark up seemed to coincide with the bottles being marked, "Distributed by Moet & Hennesy Australia".....

Oh well, such is life.....