If you like High West, track down a High West Midwinter Night, which is their sherried rye; it'll go for like $70 in season and holds up with good Speyside.

Dollar for dollar, there's probably no better value in Scotland than a GlenDronach 15, and you really can't go wrong with any GlenDronach, from 12 to 23, with an age statement.

Aberlour A'bunadh is Aberlour's no-age-statement high-cask-flavor expression and it's pretty cheap (like $50?). If you buy it and really like it, there's a whole world of wine-casked Speysides you can go explore.

I am a fiend for cask-y Speysides but I haven't really liked any of the Balvenie stuff (even though Balvenie is one of the cooler distilleries).

I'm working my way through a Tamdhu NAS Special Edition which I'm liking a lot, so our tastes may be similar.

If you're less into sweetness and wineyness and fruitiness and more into grain character, I like Springbank a lot.

The good news about American whiskey is that spending money on it is the wrong approach. The right thing to do with American whiskey is to buy bottom-shelf bourbon and rye, preferably from brands that have a bottled-in-bond expression of whatever it is you're buying (or just buy the bonded expression itself if you can get it). So: Very Old Barton, Heaven Hill, Old Granddad, and Old Forester. These are, like, $30 bottles. Also buy a Four Roses and a Wild Turkey.

Don't buy premium-priced American whiskey until you've tried enough "cheap" whiskey to know what you liked and (importantly) don't like. You can live on the bottom shelf of bourbon and be a happy drinker for a long time, and you get snob points for appreciating a cheap Heaven Hill while "hipsters" pay $60 for an "artisanal" "craft whiskey" that is really just a bottling of MGPI.

Later

A lay-up pick in your price range is Redbreast Lustau, a sherry-casked Irish whiskey. Over-the-top wine notes on top of an already super drinkable whiskey.

Another good sherry Irish is Yellow Spot (~$100) and its cheaper non-sherry sibling Green Spot (~$50). Irishes drown very easily, so be careful with the water!

Never tried it. Will now. Thanks!

No problem! They only recently started distributing to the US. I know you're a Chicago guy (same here). You can grab both at Binny's. They have both at Longman & Eagle to try if you're not interested in bottles. Not sure if Lady Gregory's carries, thinking of other bars that would have a good selection of Irishes.

> Dollar for dollar, there's probably no better value in Scotland than a GlenDronach 15, and you really can't go wrong with any GlenDronach, from 12 to 23, with an age statement.

Man.. It really comes down to preference. I find Old Pulteney 12yo to be one of the best values out there (I prefer the 17yo, but it is for sure more pricey).

I've had Pulteney in bars but never bought a bottle. But all the Pulteney I've had (and the 12yo expression) is bourbon casked. That doesn't make it bad, just less interesting to me.

The annoying way I look at it is that if I'm going to pay 3x as much as I pay for VOB to get a scotch, I want something more interesting than a nicely balanced whiskey with some spice and some caramel notes. That's all well and good, but I can get that from Four Roses.

But one thing I cannot get from American whiskey is nicely balanced whiskey with powerful wine notes. As a rule, American whiskeys are aged for a relatively short time in new oak, and Scotch is aged for a long time in used barrels. So Scotch distillers are experts at imparting flavors from different casks, and that's kind of what I'm paying for.

That, or I'm paying for smoke and phenols and brine, which I'm sometimes in the mood for, but mostly I avoid.

The 17yo and older Pulteney expressions are also aged (some) in (oloroso) sherry butts. The 12yo is not, from what I understand.

I tend to not like heavily sherried Scotches (sherry-bombs), preferring oak, smoke, peat, brine, and nutty flavors. Sounds like you enjoy the wine/sherry though. Luckily there are plety of options out there for both of us.

Sláinte!

Thank you so much for this detailed response, much appreciated. I'll give some of your recommendations a try. Just to clarify, the GrenDronach 15 is the tawny cask version, right?

There's I think more than one Dronach 15, but Dronach as a whole is famous primarily for producing sherry bombs and I think any Dronach you buy that has an age statement (12, 15, 18, 21, &c) is going to be a safe bet.

Yes to the Wild Turkey - good taste and great value. Best drunk in the woods from a metal cup with a bit of ice.

I'm a hardcore bourbon drinker that had a real hard time finding scotch I could enjoy. But eventually found Springbank. I prefer the 12 year old to the other age statements and it fits in your budget.

That said, drink a bunch of cheap whiskey. Basically all American whiskey can be found in cheap expressions that capture the things that you like. Learning that you prefer Wild Turkey to Four Roses (for instance) gives you information to move up the price board.

Try a Macallan 12, then try a George Dickel Rye. You could do the reverse but I think it gives a better idea of the similarities of some spirits even though they may have a big price difference.

Ardbeg An Oa if you can find it, the regular Ardbeg 10 is good too. High West Rendezvous Rye is lovely. For mixing Rittenhouse 100 Rye is inexpensive but yummy.

Worth noting that High West Rye is MGP product. You can pay 1/3rd as much to get roughly the same spirit by buying Redemption or George Dickel.

MGP makes a lot of different whiskeys. But that does not mean that all of them are the same.

I do feel that many of the brands are priced by pure marketing (ie whistle pig). But some are quite good.

FYI some of the high West varieties are MGP product mixed with High West own distilled product.