Skye’s famous Talisker Distillery has just opened an impressive new visitor centre following a £1million redevelopment.
The opening coincides with the start of the tourist season and represents a major improvement on the facilities that the distillery offers to visitors. As the only Scotch whisky producer on Skye it is already a key tourist attraction on the island, welcoming almost 60,000 visitors last year.
Distillery Manager Mark Lochhead said:
“We are absolutely delighted with the investment we have made here at Talisker and with the new facilities we have created. Talisker is going from strength to strength as a brand and the distillery is growing in popularity with people coming from all over the world to visit the home of our iconic single malt.
Talisker is also one of Diageo’s leading single malt Scotch whiskies in terms of sales performance, delivering net sales growth of 20% in the company’s recent half year results.
“The new visitor centre gives us a wonderful stage to tell the story of Talisker with its rich history and heritage and also to give our visitors a really high quality experience which matches the unique whisky we make here.
The investment has seen the creation of a new welcome area for visitors and a spectacular enhanced viewing gallery in one of the distillery warehouses. New tasting rooms have also been created in which visitors can savour Talisker single malt Scotch whisky in surroundings which reflect the heritage and provenance of the whisky.
Talisker is Diageo’s busiest distillery visitor centre welcoming 59,767 people in 2012- up by more than 10 per cent from 54,303 in 2011.
“We are also delighted for the local economy here on Skye. This investment has seen a significant number of contractors staying in the area benefiting local businesses and the increasing tourism will also have a great knock-on effect for local businesses.”
