Wild Turkey is a staple, though I'll admit that it's pretty rough. You can't miss with Buffalo Trace.
Hell yeah! I've been getting into the smoky single malt scotches, like Laphroaig and Bunnahabhain. For smoother scotches, I usually just go for the Glen______s. I've got a soft spot for Glenlivet 12 year, because that's the first kind I had, and was introduced to it by my mate from London. I agree that on the rocks is too diluted, but I don't like tepid scotch either, so I'll usually dip one ice cube in at a time. Alternatively, you can try an ice sphere, which is a large ball of ice. The sphere has the highest volume to surface area ratio, so melts at the slowest rate. I've also been sampling some ryes and bourbons lately, with mixed results. In general I think bourbons are a bit too sweet for my taste, but there are some excellent dry bourbons and American rye whiskeys from small family owned southern distilleries that are really good and surprisingly cheap, like Old Forester. (And yes, I am secretly a 60 year old man, at least according to Google Analytics. Probably spend too much time online perusing writing forums and buying cardigans or something.)
I don't know of many women who enjoy scotch, and you're the first woman I know of who likes peat monsters like Laphroaig. So kudos to you! I'll admit that Laphroaig is a bit too strong for my tastes.
Surprisingly many. *Raises hand* You've just been hanging in a wrong crowd ;P Used to enjoy a lot of scotch with my hubbie, Ardbeg (esp. 10 yo), Glenmorangie, Talisker, Laphroaig, Glenfiddich, Bowmore (esp. 12 yo), Highland Park (12 and 18)... Nowadays, not so much, but a lot of it has to do with the prices getting really steep around here. You could buy a Bowmore easily under 40 euros, which was ok, but now it's around 45. Laphroaig Quarter Cask was a huge "seller" in our parties. Everyone really liked it (yes, even girls). I love it when the whisky's particularly smoky and peaty. As for whiskey (what? it seems to matter!), Jameson's always held a special place. Never ever ice or splash of water or *gasp* ice tea. Ice is for bourbon.
I like whiskey as against whisky, that is, Irish as against Scots. I think it's because I prefer the smoothness that comes from Irish water over the harsher burn of Scottish. I'm the same with stouts. I prefer Murphy's in the UK as it's imported from Ireland, where Guinness is brewed in the UK with UK water and it just doesn't have that smoothness to it. But try finding a single malt Irish whiskey in the UK! Scottish single malt is fairly commonplace these days, but Irish not so much it seems.
Haha. You're probably right. I'm lucky when it comes to prices. The state of Oregon doesn't have sales tax, so buying alcohol is relatively cheap compared to, say, the state of Washington (in fact, people living near the Oregon border sometimes cross over and buy groceries here). That being said, I've noticed that the price of scotch has gone up a little in the past few months, though it's not too bad.
My bride and I once took a B&B tour of Scotland, ten days, with the goal of drinking as many different single malt whiskies as we could. Got to about 25, but then, no one was counting the last couple of days. At that time we were told there were over 200 single malts. Almost everything stateside are blends. Never got into shandies, though. I love Scotland.
I cant stand the stuff but I know tons about it because my other half is an expert. He has created a local whisky tasting club, and belongs to some major malt whisky club who have 'gentlemen's clubs' in Edinburgh and London for members only. He loves the heavily smoked ones, the Islays, best and at present the one most in favour is called The Big Peat. We visit Scotland whenever we can and tour the distilleries, too. But his favourite place is a tiny house converted into a whisky shop, in the middle of the Gairngroms. And he was ecstatic a few months back whilst tracing his family history, to discover he had Scottish ancestors reaching right back to the 14thC.
I skipped beers and wines when I first started drinking and went straight to the hard stuff. I had the same problem with scotch, once I got a taste for it and tried some more expensive ones I found out you have to spend a lot of money to have good scotch. Since then I moved on to rye whisky and couldn't be happier, it tastes great to me and is pretty inexpensive. I hope to maybe pick up a few bottles of decent scotch to keep around the house for those rare times I get a minute to relax and have a drink.
The only alcoholic beverage I like are wine coolers. And it's been years since I've had one, as I've never been big into drinking.
If you are scotch lover then you try Dewars scotch whiskies which is one of the best scotch,i always prefer it.
I like Laphroaig, Ardbeg, Clynelish, GlenDronach, and plenty of others. Also, Connemara is a nice, peaty Irish Whiskey.
As I said earlier, I like wine coolers. But except for that, the only drink that tastes bearable to me is Coffee Brady. I don't like Coffee Brady, but I don't hate it either.
I did it. $40 for a shot of Johnnie Walker Blue Label. It was good, but it wasn't $40 good. I was a little underwhelmed. There was nothing unique about it. It's definitely not as good as Green Label, which is half the price of Blue. On a related note, they stopped producing Green Label. It might become a collector's item in a few years.