Talisker 8

Looks good. Righteous ABV. OK price. They should have been doing this, or, better yet, 10 yo Cask Strength, all along.

It is so so easy for the distillers to meet the high flavour high quality demands of the public: just routinely release Cask Strength whiskies. No Age stated: OK. Age stated, even better.

I have been looking forward to this since they announced the special releases, the ABV is even better than hoped for.

According to Whisky cast some of these will not be released in North America and the Talisker might be one of them.

@Victor you're totally right concerning the high quality, high proof releases that a lot of distillers could offer. Laphroaigs program is a good example, same with Stagg Jr. on the bourbon front.

@cricklewood @Victor - Well I hope you do manage to snag one! Availability is an odd one. The only way (as far as I know) to get a CS Laphroaig 10 in the UK is to go up to the distillery and get lucky, yet it seems fairly common place in N America?

@RianC Not commonplace, only in the US, and never in Canada

@RianC, ah, hmmm, yes, there is considerable difference in whisky availability between Canada and the US. Sure, where I live I could buy 100 bottles of Laphroaig 10 Cask Strength at about $ 70 per 750. $ 69.99 plus 9 % is the rack rate, but if you buy 12 non-sale items here you get an 8% case discount. On sale they would be maybe 5% lower than the case price. And yes, Laphroaig 10 CS does sometimes go on sale/offer here. @MadSingleMalt in Wisconsin reports abundant 10 CS about 20 clams lower than our price.

As long as I have Talisker 57 North, I won't have much pull toward an 8 yo Cask Strength. When I run low, well, that is another matter.

@Victor It would give me pleasure to assist Talisker in depleting its supply of 8YO. But maybe its because 57 N is too expensive to buy and no always available in Ontario, other than DF stores going OUT.

But if it comes to Ontario my suspicion is it will be too expensive, like the 57 N.

I don;t expect all the Diageo special releases to be accidentally priced down by the LCBO like the 18 YO Caol Ila CS was.

Although I can see someone in the warehouse (or boardroom) looking at the 8 YO, and pricing it as 80% of the 10 YO...