Bourbon or scotch?

I prefer the single malts.

Bourbon, like Knob Creek.

When it comes to brown liquors, it used to be bourbon for me, but now it's scotch. Especially some good shit like Oban.

i was a mostly scotch drinker for years, now mostly bourbon or rye. a lot of Bulleit rye lately.

Apples to oranges, but I prefer bourbon.

Not really, Fish. 

Why I drank such things, bourbon... Basil Hayden

Rye

Bourbon, Elijah Craig or Noah's Mill

got a jug of this for xmas

112 proof -- yowch!--   still haven't opened it

All I drink is Dewar's.

I tried a bunch of different bottles of scotch a couple of years ago and found I have cheap tastes. The only ones I really wanted to buy again were Famous Grouse and Dewar's, both blended and relatively inexpensive.

I won't usually drink the browns - but that peaty, earthy, smokey Oban is a new found pleasure for me. Just a wee bit there, laddy, but that's fine.

Yamazaki 18 year old is fantastic. 

Dad's Hat Rye - PA brand

Angels Envy - rum cask finish - smoooth

Bulleit is a good cheaper Rye 

I agree with ender, when it comes to reasonably priced scotchs, Dewar's White Label and Famous Grouse are both good choices.      For a reasonably priced bourbon I usually go with Maker's Mark. Right now I'm working on a bottle of Canadian Club 100% Rye which is surprisingly good and priced right at about $20.

The Canadians make good rye. Unique in that it's a 100℅ rye mashbill, unlike the KY style which is three grain, or the Indiana style which is two grain. 

As much shit as Whistle Pig (rightfully) takes for their deceptive marketing practices; they are bottling some great Canadian rye at cask strength. I've had some store picked private selections from my local and Binny's in Chicago that were both outstanding. It's usually around $80 a bottle, but recommended for a rye fan as a splurge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--AvCsh48bk 

Friends took me out for dinner on my birthday to a place that pairs chocolates and whiskeys. The last time I was there I tried 3 different types and found that I don't like the peaty smoky types, but do like the sort-of-caramel-tasting type. Gentle, warm, lovely. I can't remember the name of what I ordered as my drink this recent time, but they understood my description of what I didn't want and what I did and it was good. I like reading these threads but I so rarely drink this kind of liquor that I forget what I read after awhile. Thanks for bringing it up every so often.

It sounds like your palate definitely favors bourbon, Judit. Bourbon has a distinctive vanilla/caramel forward flavor profile that actually comes from the new charred oak barrels during the aging of the spirit. For people who love it, there's nothing better.

Thanks, I didn't know where that flavor comes from. It's good. I will have to drink more to know if I love it.

Scotch tastes like kerosene to my palate. Really expensive scotch tastes like expensive kerosene. I do t know why, but that's just how it tastes to me.

Does scotch have the peaty smoky flavor? Filtered through peat like from bogs?

Stick with the sweet stuff then, Brian.

They do not filter the scots whisky through peat, Judit - but the water they use comes from a water table that is influenced by peat bogs.

I traveled by train through bogs in Scotland - very different landscape than anywhere else I've ever been. Are the Scots whiskeys made in Scotland?

I like good whisky.

Lagavulin 16 being my hands-down all time favorite.

Yes, they are made in Scotland and they are spelled whisky without an "e".

The Irish spell it whiskey as do North Americans.

got a bottle of glenfiddich about 9 years ago - dust covered - still unopened- about 21 years old now.

any of you scotch crotches want to come by and have a drink - lemme know

Scotch doesn't age in the bottle, Klon.

Once it's out of the barrel and bottled, that's its age forever.

I never knew that St. Mark, a good factoid to know. Can the same be said for wine? 

I prefer an excellent Irish Whiskey. A good scotch in the winter time is a thing of beauty though.

No, wine ages in the bottle Fafa. So does beer.

Whiskey is inert. The only thing that can really destroy a whisk(e)y is direct sunlight, and possibly crazy heat over a long period of time. Stuff is basically invincible.

In the hundreds of bottles I've collected, I've only had one that I believe suffered from sunlight degradation; based on the severly sun faded condition of the label and the burning rubber/inescapable sadness note in the juice when I opened it to sample.

I've found bottles from the 70's, 80's, and 90's in really run down liquor stores, and all of them have been perfectly good, so long as they were kept out of the sun. 

Irish Whiskey

Redbreast 12 year pot still is my jam, but I'm a good Irish lad who will gladly do a shot of Jameson with ya.

I haven't delved too much into the renewed  bourbon craze of the last few years.  Going to school in the south had me set on that for a while.  I was friends with some guys who went through at least one of every bottle on the store and got to taste the gamut....20 years ago.  The current scene sounds  exciting to me though.

I really like Redbreast 12. That's an excellent Irish whiskey

Bourbon is fun. Everybody who is really serious will tell you how much better it was back in the day; but that's bullshit. There's some amazing stuff being aged and released today that competes with anything ever bottled.

Bourbon geeks are basically nerdy like Deadheads; except they pretend not to be fucked up after they sit around drinking all night. 

Thanks for the info, never knew some of this stuff. My problem is I tend to like the same stuff over and over. Like Beer for example, I like IPA's and pale ales. Not much else. Bourbon and not many other liquors unless mixed with stuff. Can one train your palate or if you've been doing the same for 15/20 years are you ruined, I just tend to always go back to what I like when I try new stuff.

i have a bourbon/rye geek buddy who spent his vacations driving through Appalachian/Distilling states and would do distillery tours snagging small batch bottles all over the place - i had the pleasure over the years to enjoy the fruits of those travels. He hit every distillery, the smaller the better as far as he was concerned.

AND YEAH - Whistle Pig is over priced

peace

Depends on my mood

Lagavulin 16 Year for Scotch

Russell's Reserve 10 Year for Bourbon

I'm sitting now at the bar,
I'm getting drunk, I'm feelin' mellow
I'm drinkin' bourbon, I'm drinkin' scotch, I'm drinkin' beer
Looked down the bar, here come the bartender
I said "Look man, come down here"
So what you want?

One bourbon, one scotch, one beer
No, I ain't seen my baby since the night before last,
Gotta get a drink man, I'm gonna get gassed
Gonna get high man, I ain't had enough,
Need me a triple shot of that stuff
Gonna get drunk, won't you listen right here,
I want one bourbon, one scotch, and one beer
One bourbon, one scotch, one beer

For you redbreast fans.  Check out this new whiskey coming out of Middleton.  It's great.  

Another good Irish Whiskey. 

They give me heartburn, so, unfortunately, neither. 

poisoned myself almost to death on cheap whiskey (Seagram's 7) when I was a teenager... to this day I still can't stand even the smell of any liquor in the brown spectrum. 

^ that would've been Southern Comfort for me. Just the sight of a bottle of that shit gives me the willies

I had that happen to me with Hiram Walkers TEN HIGH-- the WORST

Since inauguration day, BOTH!

Guess I like the Highland style, as JW Black is too smokey and Islay stuff like Laphroig is too peaty (like drinking dirt).  I sn pent several months in Scotland ~30 years ago, and the "locals" drank Famous Grouse and a blend from the local drugstore "Spar" as the single malts were expensive.  When I came back to the US I enjoyed Famous Grouse with dark chocolate, and I still like that or Dewars as mentioned above.  And for me, without overspending, the regular 12 y.o. Macallan's (sherry cask) is really yummy.

My understanding of the source of the peat/smoke flavor is that it comes from malting the barley.  Whether you're making beer or whisk(e)y, you wet the barley to make it germinate.  The enzymes begin to turn the starches to sugars to feed the growing sprout.  Then you roast it to stop the growth of the plant (and affect the pH of the resulting wort, depending on how hard your water is).  When the fuel used to roast the malted grain is peat, you get the peaty/smokey flavor.

I used to drink Scotch, but much like IPAs and hops, I burnt out on the smokiness.

Now, I like a good bourbon. Nothing crazy. My affordable go-to is Buffalo Trace. I enjoy Woodford, Elijah Craig, Basil Hayden if I'm feeling flush and fancy.

F.I.L. gave me a really nice bottle of Angel's Envy port finish for Christmas. And if I won the lottery, Widow Jane would be my indulgence.