Buying scotch can be intimidating for the uninitiated. Walk into any liquor store and you’re met with a wall of unfamiliar labels of varying ages. You don’t have to know it all to pick out a bottle someone will enjoy. What you need to know are the three following answers: 1. What’s your budget? 2. What do they like to drink already? 3. Is this a ‘safe choice’ gift or are you trying to find something more adventurous? We’ll walk through each decision to equip you up with the knowledge to pick a great bottle.
Start With Budget
Before you even begin looking at bottles, know your budget going in. This will narrow down the selections and help remove some of the target overload factor when it comes to making a selection.
If you are working on a smaller budget, don’t let that discourage you. Scotch pricing doesn’t always dictate the quality at the end of the day. You can find a great bottle for less than $50 that any scotch drinker will enjoy if you know what they like. The under $50 category has more to offer than people might first expect. This is where you can find true value.
Match Their Flavor Preference
If you know anything about their drinking habits going in, you can translate that into a general flavour profile for scotch. Bourbon drinkers typically enjoy a vanilla/caramel scotch profile. Red wine drinkers will often veer towards a sherry-cask with sherried expressions. Cocktail drinkers who are adventurous are more open to smoky, peaty styles scotches like Ardbeg and Laphroaig.
Single Malt or Blended?
This is the most common trip-up for people looking into buying a gift for someone. You always hear about single malt whisky. So, what’s all the hype about? All it means is that the whisky is made entirely from malted barley and comes from a single distillery. Blended whisky on the other hand comes from multiple distilleries. It can come from just malted barley alone but more often times blends one or more single malt with one or more grain whisky.
Although single malt is typically viewed as a superior product to a blended whisky, it isn’t always the case. Blending sometimes allows for specific flavor profiles that single malts cannot match. As mentioned before, it comes down to the persons taste, more so than whether a single malt or blended whisky.
Quick-Pick Recommendations
If you’d like to skip the shopping process, the two bottles below are regarded as safe picks that work for most scotch drinkers. They are also budget friendly as not to break the bank.
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