I love that stuff. Most Scotches take me a glass or two to get acquainted with, but the Oban was wonderful from the first sip.
As someone pointed out above, the thing with single malts is that they are often so strongly flavored that one either loves or hates them.
I thought Laphroig (the ten year old) was wonderful from the first sip, many, many years ago, but Oban puts me off. There’s something syrupy in the flavor that I don’t like.
On the other hand, my wife loves it. She’s an infrequent sipper, so a bottle lasts forever, but there’s always a bottle of Oban at home.
Glenfiddich is my go-to for regular consumption. Glenmorangie is also good.
While I like an occasional Laphroaig myself, it does taste a lot like a fire in a boot factory.
A bottle lasts me a long time. I wouldn’t make it a first choice unless you know your guest likes peaty scotches.
Recently, I’ve being drinking Caor Ila as a somewhat milder alternative to Laphroaig.
Aberlour 12 year, if you can find it.
Start with something smooth. Redbreast is the smoothest I’ve found, and it’s my “I’m saving up for a bottle” whisky ($65-100).
But Monkey Shoulder is wonderful, especially for the price ($30-40ish). At that price, you could buy two bottles: a smooth, and a peaty/smoky scotch. Maybe Oban, Ardbeg, or Talisker (or to really save money, Trader Joe’s Islay Storm - *surprisingly classy, but very peaty).
*Note: I call it their “Twenty Dollar Talisker”. Took some to a poker game full of scotch snobs, but disguised it in a Finnerty’s bottle. One guy says, as he takes a sip “Just got back from the Scottish islands, visited a lot of distilleries…” (uh, oh, the jig is up!) “… and this is as good as anything I tried there. Ooh, I’ll have to find a bottle of this.”
I had to fess up quickly, before anyone googled Finnerty’s Scotch…
(it’s what Tom Selleck often drinks with his daughter or dad, at the end of an episode of Blue Bloods… and it’s just a prop).
Can you get a bottle of Lagavulin for under $100? I’ve thought about getting myself a bottle a few times, but it seems to start around $150 which is out of my price range.
I drink the cheap stuff and the only one I really like is JB. It is what I started with 50 years ago and have never found one in my price range that has a close enough taste. I do enjoy sampling the expensive scotches and every once in a while I will try one that really makes me think about spending a little more once in a while. I don’t care for the peat taste being too pronounced, very subtle works for me.
The Lagavulin 16 is $90 at my local store. The 8 is $55.
www.mysupermarket.co.uk lists “Lagavulin Single Islay Malt 16 Years Old (700ml)” for £49 at Amazon, Tesco, Asda… Did you try a big supermarket or a Beverages & More?
Single malts can be hard to take, if you aren’t into the heavy peat or smoke. Unlike many, I think the blended scotches add something by blending: if done right they make a flavor profile that’s better than the individual parts. Johnnie Walker, while no doubt masters of marketing, do know what they are doing when they blend. While the Blue may not be worth the price tag, few would argue that it is not a very fine blend. Possibly their smoothest blend is the JW Gold. Around $80/bottle. When you have a glass or 2 of it, there is no doubt you are drinking a very fine whisky, without having to acquire any taste you didn’t already have.
Regards to the Green mentioned above: when JW discontinue a brand, and then re-introduce it, it tends to not be the exact same. So while it is still a malt-only blend, it probably isn’t from the same sources as the first go-around - meaning a slightly different flavor profile. My palate isn’t refined enough to tell the difference, though.
Another recommendation for Aberlour A’bunadh.
For people new to scotch, I NEVER recommend peaty scotches like Ardbeg or Laphroig.
‘Easier’ single malt scotches include (maybe some Spelling mistakes in there):
-Macallan
-Auchentoshen
-Glen Goyne
-Glenmorangie
-Glenfiddich
-Glenlivet
In terms of Irish whiskey, I find that there’s some nice blended scotches. I have enjoyed Bushmills (both black bush and red bush are good and inexpensive) and Glendalough, which might be a single malt.
Depends on where your malt is from. Single malt is not at all synonymous with “peaty.” There are plenty of low-peat or unpeated malts like the Macallan 12, Bunnahabhain 12, Glenkinchie 12, Glengoyne, the Lowland whskeys (see: Auchentoshan, bit more like an Irish whisky than a scotch), many of the Speysides (like Macallan mentioned above, but also Aberlour A’bunadh, and I find Glenlivet to be very peat light, if at all peated) etc. If you don’t like peat/smokiness, there’s plenty of single malts to make you happy.
I find blends generallyhave a detectable level of peat in them (which I do like), whereas there are a good number of single malts that have no or little peat in them. The Johnnie Walker Gold is probably the least peated of their line of blends. The other ones definitely have a peat characteristic to them.
Glenmorangie is what I’d recommend to people who have no idea what they like. But why do you want to buy scotch for an Irishman? Jameson has a nice variety of single malts. And don’t let a bottle of scotch sit around half full! All that dead air is just letting the liquor go stale.
I’ll second this… I think it is one of the best for the price. Many options under $100.
I like Belvenie, in fact their double wood was my gateway to buying scotch by the bottle.
I’m blanking on the name, but the local booze chain whiskey expert led me to a really nice, lightly peated Isay for about $60. Agree with folks above thread that liken the peated single malts to being akin to American IPA’s. Peat bombs don’t do it for me, but I really like some of the less in your face ones.
Thing to remember on single malt scotches is that they generally fall into the category of “velvet glove” or “gnarled fist.” Most of the peated ones, like the Laiphroag 10 year, definately fall into the gnarled fist category (to my palate, YMMV).
Jameson has some nice barrel aged stuff in the “caskmates” line. Jameson caskmates stout is aged in Irish Stout craft beer barrels.
I’m probably swimming against the tide here, but I’d think as a rum guy(what are your favorites?), you’re probably going to want to ease into Scotch, as it can be awfully intense stuff depending on the bottling.
My overall advice would be to ease in to whiskey in general via bourbon and rye and then move to Scotch, but if you’re determined to go straight to Scotch, I’d say that a good quality blend is probably your best bet, not a single malt. Something like Monkey Shoulder, Famous Grouse, Johnnie Walker Black (or higher), or one that I rather like, the Mackinlay’s “Shackleton” blend, which is meant to evoke a similar flavor profile to the vintage Scotch found buried in Antarctica recently from Ernest Shackleton’s South Pole expedition in 1907. None are going to pummel you like some single malts will, but all are good renditions of Scotch.
I dunno. This makes scotch seem a lot more exotic and challenging than it has to be. If you’re fine with a Makers or Knob Creek, you shouldn’t have any issue getting into something like Aberlour Abunadh or Macallan or Balvenie. Yes, if you’re talking about the peated malts, that may take some getting used to or require a particular fondness for smoky or unusual flavors, but these? Not so much. I became a scotch drinker before I started drinking any other kinds of whiskey. (I had been a beer, vodka, and rum drinker when I discovered scotch.) I personally started on Glenlivet 12 and Oban 14, then I got into Famous Grouse (which I feel is “rougher” than either of these, but still tasty for an inexpensive scotch.)
I don’t pretend to be a connoisseur but my introduction to scotches was the Laphroaig 10 year which I tell people tastes like how sitting around a campfire feels. Perhaps it’s because it was my first and therefore my brain thinks that’s how scotch should taste or I just have an insensitive palate, but other scotches often strike me as a bit wimpy. Just a data point in the tally of Is/Isn’t Laphroaig a good beginner’s scotch.
Amusingly, when I first started drinking scotch, during my days of working at the Renaissance Faire in the early '90s, I once tried Laphroaig, and the immediate impression I got was “I just drank bong water.”
Now, decades later, I actually kind of like Laphroaig with a splash of water in it, but it’s definitely a different taste from a non-peaty scotch.