Too Good To Be True

Go get it. This is a once in a lifetime bottle

I'm with @Mammon; gotta risk it to get the biscuit.

I know it's not usually your style @Onibubba, spending that much on a bottle, but I say go for it! The way I look at buying whisky is, there is nothing wrong with making an expensive purchase as long as you have the money to spend. If you're missing rent payments or not able to buy new shoes for yor kid, well that's certainly problematic! But as long as the cash is available than there is nothing wrong with dropping a few dollars sometimes ; )

I predict you will pull that trigger on that phantasmogorically promising bottle. I've been drooling over this: www.klwines.com/detail.asp. You will probably beat me to a $300 purchase on a single bottle. Yes, I've spent way too much on whisky over the past few years but never over $170 on a single bottle.

Same price, two great bottles. I hope yours is a winner. I would be surprised if it's not good enough to bring a tear to your eye as you savor the magic that is Talisker at three score yarn olde

@Onibubba "Just do it" -Nike

As you have said it yourself, the bottle is not just a premium whisky, it is a conversation piece. It clearly has a meaning to you beyond value for money analysis. It brings with it the value of attaining what previously had seemed unattainable. And you will be reminded of having attained it every time you look at the bottle, smell the whisky, taste the whisky, or even think about the whisky.

Is that a 'priceless' experience? No. The price is $ 318 or so. But it is a big experience. And that big experience will only cost you $ 300 plus tax.

I'll be that little voice in your head and say "pass." Yes, you'll be excited to pull the trigger, but think how you'll feel in a month or so after you've tasted it once or twice. $300 is a lot of money. What you're really paying for is the excitement of the purchase, and that is an addictive experience that you'll probably start wanting to repeat. Just let it go I say. In the long run I doubt that spending more money will bring you more happiness.

I agree with Victor that it is excellent value BUT... Don't expect it to be 3 times as good as a £100 bottle. You are paying for its rarity more than its quality. That's said, I'd buy it.

I agree that it's more the pursuit than the drinking. And you may find yourself having difficulty with "when is the right time to open it..."

Example:

I know someone who was not interested in spirits at all, and met someone who was a collector. Over about a year he gifted him with a bunch of bottles including 3 old Macallan 25s and a 30 year old Black Bowmore.

He had no understanding of the value of the Macallans and opened one for relatives to enjoy, but over time he became very knowledgeable about whisky. He now has accumulated his own collection. Because of the circumstances surrounding his original collection he has a lot of stories to tell, but he'll probably never open most of the bottles for 2 reasons.

1. He mostly has one of each, and once opened, it has to be consumed and then it is gone.

2. As a corollary, he would save them for a special occasion, when his palate is good enough to appreciate the spirits. But when will his palate be ready for a once in a lifetime taste of Black Bowmore?

And the poor guy needs to buy two bottles of everything he gets for future drinking (like batches of A'Bunadh ) in case he likes them and they're not available by the time he gets around to drinking them. He now has literally no room for any more bottles in his cabinet. At the rate he drinks he literally has a 15 year supply of single malts...

So before making the purchase ( assuming that the monetary expense), decide what your goals are. If you're going to drink it, make a definite plan to do so and for goodness sakes do it with friends who will appreciate the specialness of what they are going to drink.

Or decide to collect it, but understand it could become an obsession.

Disclosure: I was given permission to tell that story.

OK, @Onibubba, here is my wild-ass guess as to what will happen here. You will buy the Talisker 30 and you will not be disappointed by it. This will motivate you to try some more $ 300 bottles in the future, but one or more of those WILL disappoint you, severely. Based on the history of all of your posts you seem to me to be playing out a sort of 'broken dreams' scenario. You are virtually begging to deeply (ie $ 317 worth to up the ante) experience both sides of this issue: satisfaction and frustration.

There is of course no certain way to know before actually tasting them as to whether you will like any of these whiskies which you are considering for purchase. In the event of disappointment in your new acquisitions you can always retreat to the solace of your bunker full of bottles which you know that you WILL like. Yes, it is a tricky balance between exploration of the new vs. comfort in the company of old favourites.

Go for it, Man! You want answers to your questions, don't you?

I like both of your opinions @valuewhisky and @Victor. So I would have a really hard decision here too. I guess if it's really an unique investment (or a very rarely) it's a very nice journey to explore. Like @Nozinan said, if you are having the collector-genes, this could get very expensive very fast...

There are so many great (relatively) low budget whiskys. And on the other hand there are great bottles which are always feared to get really rare soon... this dilemma is testing our will badly, let's say whisky forms the character :)

Hope you tell us how you decided!

I'll throw in my 2 cents toward what I am sure is your 85% "going to buy it" stance.

Sounds like you have done your research on the web. I find Serge amazingly helpful. But you really have to learn what "HE" looks for in his reviews. This will certainly be an opportunity for you to do that.

Do it - just do it. But I will playfully disagree with @Victor. You WILL regret it . . . with your first taste. Because honestly, no whisky is going to taste 3x's as excellent as a bottle you already know is excellent for $100. But here is my advice for what little it is worth: If you don't love it at first sip put it at the back of your cabinet for 4 to 6 months (or a year) and try it again once some time has passed. Time heals all wounds . . . and makes expensive whiskies taste better once you have some distance from the sticker shock.

I have a similar opportunity. Next weekend my wife and I are going to South Carolina for the 4th of July. There is a little store there that has a 2005 bottle of Talisker 25yo for $200. I am really tempted. There is also a bottle of Thomas H. Handy from 2009 and some Benriach 12yo bottles from the late 90's sitting dusty on a bottom shelf. No way my wife will let me get them all . . . decisions, decisions . . .

@Nock, in the fuller picture, I see three pleomorphic organisms co-existing here: 1) my first suggested scenario of "like this Talisker 30 one; don't like something(s) in the future", 2) don't like this one (as you say, not 3x as good as a good $ 100 whisky), then later get curious again and find something "worth" the $ 300, or 3) backing off from the experience for now, and then at some future time having either scenario # 1 or #2 first, then the opposite experience later. My suggestion is that this will eventually play out until @Onibubba gets both satisfying and disappointing experiences out of his $ 300 purchases. The probable net take-away, something like: "There are a few whiskies worth $ 300+ to me, but not many. I can do just about as well with good $ 100 bottles."

@Nock And I have to playfully disagree with you ;)

I guess for anybody it will be really hard to dislike a bottle of 300$ whisky when this is the first time you are tasting/owning such an expensive dram. Especially when the avg. price for your bottles is around 50-80 bucks as a default. Your expectations will rise that dram, for that money it just "has to be good".

So I was just referring to the point that he dislikes the bottle. Ofc it won't be 3 times as good as a 100$ bottle because nobody is able to evaluate this...

So I was just referring to the point that he dislikes the bottle. Ofc it won't be 3 times as good as a 100$ bottle because nobody is able to evaluate this...

@Onibubba If you can afford it, if you want it, buy it

I still think it's a big mistake. Esp. buying with the "now or never" scenario. I've had many instances of "I gotta buy it now or I'll never get it!" and passed on them. You know what? I don't miss any of those lost opportunities. Forget the "deal" you're getting on this bottle, and stop and think - if you really decided you wanted to spend that cash on one bottle, would Talisker 30 be the one? I bet not. I bet you'd look for Laphroaig 25 or something like that. And anyway, right this second I could order Talisker 30 for about $360 US (including shipping) from shop.whiskybase.com, and Talisker 25 would only be about $240. So don't think that this is a "gotta have" opportunity. Plan out your purchases and get what you want. Don't buy just because it's there.

Buy the bottle and drink it on a special occasion, wedding, anniversary, whatever. I'm sure you'll find that you will enjoy it even more with the great memories of that special day you pick.

Just don't let it sit on a shelf drink it and enjoy it.

I just remembered this quote that I saw once (and I'm pretty sure it was on Serge's Pete and Jack comic, but very wise all the same): "The definition of a bargain is something you don't need at a price you can't resist." (or something like that)

Thanks everyone. You gave me lots to think about. Did I buy it? Was there ever any doubt? A few things I wanted to mention:

Why this bottle? Talisker 30 used to be bottled at cask strength, which changed year to year. This 2008 bottle was CS at 49.5%, a sweet spot for me. Current bottlings of both Talisker 25 and 30 are no longer cask strength, and are being bottled at 45.8%, the range standard.

More info on the price: The owner knocked 80.00 off the price to bring it down to 300.00. Also, had I ordered this online, the same bottle would have set me back 425.00 if shipped from overseas.

Other bottles I would consider buying at 300.00? Laphroaig 25 Cask Strength. The Glenfarclas @rigmorole mentioned. Lagavulin 21. A Brora. That's all I can think of for now.

Is it for drinking or displaying? To be honest, it's going to be doing some shelf sitting for a while. I've got a lot to work my way through before this guy. But it's comforting to know it's there for me when I decide I want the experience.

Thanks again!!! Lots of good points brought up that need to be considered when making a major purchase.

@Onibubba Get that bad boy! That's STUPIDLY cheap! Whoever it is doesn't know what they've got on their hands. Worse comes to worse you buy it and then I buy it off you for $400 and you go back 4 EXCELLENT bottles ;)

@Onibubba, I'm a bit late to the party, but I'll throw in my opinion. You're right to compare the one bottle of it to three bottles of other excellent whisky rather than asking whether it's three-times as good. There's a premium on luxury goods, so the higher it is, the disproportionately more expensive it is.

@Victor has some great views on this. You may be disappointed in the bottle, but, based on your reviews, it seems that this flavor profile suits you well. As for cost, why not compare it to the Balvenie Tun 1401 that you reviewed (and, of which, you say that you bought two extra bottles)? I think that there have been studies that show that when you think that you are experiencing something more special, some pleasure centers in the brain become more active (designmind.frogdesign.com/articles/…). More food for thought.

I expect that you'll get the bottle. In the end, how much you enjoy it will also depend on the expectation of it and whether you resent the purchase in the end. If you've got the cash for it and you value it, then why not go for it? If you don't or are getting it just to get an expensive bottle, then hold off until you find something that you really want -- not just something you kind of want and can get at a relatively decent price.