Imagine a set,no, a collection of whiskies which appear annually and as each year comes around the hype around this years new collection get greater and greater – better and better. People are buying up the bottles all over the world in advance of Christmas. They are proclaimed as some of the best bottles of the year and they include whiskies from long since closed distilleries. Unicorn liquid which can’t be reproduced anymore.
Back at HQ, they see the success and its a great influencers on the bottom line of the company success. The problem with being a company on the stock exchange though is you can’t have a year with numbers as good as last year. Nope. This year we demand more! MORE!
So where do we get more profit from? Well, there is this collection we ship every year and you know I heard some of those bottles went to auction for 3 times rrp? What?! We can’t have that we need to balance the market. Meet the demand and remove the secondary market making profit. Actually, now that I think about it. If bottles can go for that at auction then the market can take a 40% increase this year.
Fair forward to 2025 – present day.
I am wondering around Amazon looking for deals and this 2023 vintage Talisker is available for £60. Stock that has been sitting around being a cost sink on the balance sheet and taking up warehouse space is now being low balled out through Amazon (yuck) to get the damn stuff away and gone.
That dear reader is how you break the market with greed.
Anyway.
Talisker from the Special Releases collection of 2023 was a cask strength whisky finished in a collection of different Port pipes including Ruby, White and Tawny pipes in fact. Bottled at 59.4% ABV the rrp is £140 for a NAS but spoiler alert here. Its fucking great whisky – under RRP.
Tasting Notes
| Colour | pale yellow |
| Nose | Lots of Talisker character. Woody smoke and peat fire smoke but with a thick jammy redcurrant undertone to it. Just a hint of saline binding it all together |
| Palate | Linear between nose and palate. Added intensity from the strength and some pepper and chilli but still that jammy sweetness from the Port |
| Finish | The peat is the thing that lingers with the sweet grape of the port wrapping around it |
Where Can I Buy?
Master of Malt – Special Release 2023
Amazon – https://amzn.to/4hNwQ3C
Final Thoughts
I can’t find a price as keen as the one I got this for. That is a shame but know that if you like peat and sweet cask finishes you will like this one.
Malted 
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