🥃 Choosing your first bottle of Whiskey

 

Choosing your first bottle of whiskey can be exciting, but with so many options, it can also be a bit overwhelming. Some recommend trying a variety of whiskies at bars, ideally ones that serve flights, before settling on that first bottle. Based on seeing friends try to jump right in to neat whiskey, I'm not sure that's the best advice. Many people thinking about getting into whiskey may not have a lot of experience drinking straight liquor and may have even less experience trying to TASTE liquor (shots, shots, shots everybody). At first, most people just taste alcohol, and while we love that chemical, a generic burning sensation and booze forward flavors don't present the most compelling argument, hence the common practice of "chasing" drinks with a palette cleanser or supplementing the liquor with sugar and mixers in cocktails. If you are used to tasting tequila, rum, or another spirit already, by all means jump straight into flights or curated tastings, but for the rest I highly recommend working up to neat whiskey with the process below.

Appreciating Whiskey requires "Retraining" of the Tongue

Our mouths are highly sensitive, combining the nuanced readings of our taste buds with additional processing from our noses and olfactory organs. These features have served our species will, helping primitive humans to pick out potentially hazardous foods, and alcohol (technically a poison) definitely trips those instincts. Retraining our mouths is not an instantaneous activity, and my honest opinion is that it will likely take at least a full bottle of consumption before neat is on the table for lower proof whiskey. Depending on you, working up to barrel proof or higher octane offerings may take a year or more. The length of this process is the primary reason I try and point friends towards buying a bottle or two as that quantity purchased at a bar is almost guaranteed to be an order of magnitude more expensive. So what are the qualities of a good starter bottle?

Breaking Down the perfect Starter Whiskey 

We'll get to flavor profile in a minute, but all good starter whiskey bottles share a few primary qualities:

• Cost - Good intro whiskeys shouldn't be overly expensive. There are plenty of great options below $30. If you're just starting out, I wouldn't waste extra coin on a fancy bottle. Whiskey ingredients are cheap and you're picking a sparring partner. The guys from down the street will do fine, no reason to jump in the ring with Mike Tyson. This pretty much rules out single malt scotch or other import whiskey with few options under $50 these days. 

• Availability - Similar to cost, I would pick something that you can find anywhere. Flagship whiskey brands can be found in most bars, are of reasonable quality, and allow you to quickly have a comfort pick when out and about. Part of the fun of whiskey is talking about it with others, and picking a widely known bottle can be a great topic for conversation as others likely already have some opinions they'd love to share. Don't be afraid to put your two cents in as well, the whiskey community is surprisingly welcoming of even the worst takes. For those conversations, it does help to know about general whiskey styles and history.

• Proof - Since the goal is being able to enjoy our choice whiskey neat, lower alcohol by volume is the best place to start. For the purposes of this guide, I would say stick to bottles under 90 proof or 45% alcohol by volume. If you want to ignore that parameter, try Wild Turkey 101 or Evan Williams Bottled-in-Bond.

What should my first bottle of Whiskey be?

It's all about you Baby - Your Existing Preferences are the perfect Starting Point! While whiskey can have a huge variety of possible flavors (check out our exhaustive whiskey tasting guide once you're ready), we can simplify whiskies into two groups for this exercise: sweet and smoky. 

Sweet Starter Whiskies - The Bourbon Path

Bourbons are widely known for being relatively sweet whiskies. Wheated bourbons, which add wheat to the corn and malted barley as one of the primarily fermented grains, can be even more so. While these are "sweet", don't expect them to taste like candy. That being said, these bottles are all a great balance of our three core components above with honey, vanilla, or caramel highlights:

• Maker's Mark - With it's distinctive red wax dipped topper, Maker's Mark is a classic bottle that always looks great on a shelf. Aged for a minimum of around 6 years, it has plenty of time to work out some of those young whiskey off flavors and drinks exceptionally smooth. Maker's takes time to carefully blend and batch their soft red wheated goodies, rotating and picking the barrels based on taste and not time. At 90 proof it is at the top end of my recommended range, but the finish is rather quick and lacks any real whiskey "burn". Pronounced flavors are vanilla and oak which you'll be able to detect fairly quickly. Over the course of the bottle, see if you can find any notes you would characterize as "fruited". Maker's Mark was actually the first bottle of whiskey I ever bought, and posting on r/bourbon, I found that this is true for a good number of whiskey aficionados as well. You can even sign up for their Maker's Mark Ambassador Program for free. They'll put your name on a barrel, and after six or so years, you can get a free tour to taste your barrel and dip some bottles in the iconic red wax to take home!

makersmark.com

• Jim Beam - A little bit younger and cheaper, Jim Beam is aged for four years and is the best selling Bourbon and Whiskey in the World. For less than $20, this 80 proof whiskey is easy to drink and not overbearing. It does run a little "hotter" than the Maker's Mark even at the lower proof, but is the quintessential bourbon, voted as such by the world's pocketbooks. Some of this "heat" is not really alcohol burn but instead the influence of rye in its mash bill. Jim Beam, like many bourbons, uses rye instead of wheat as the third grain. It is mellow and moderate across most dimensions. For ten dollars more, you can get the super smooth Jim Beam Black 7-Year which is one of the more easy drinking whiskies out there. Beam also has a great learning path with Jim Beam Black, Devil's Cut, and Single Barrel varieties if you want to see how additional age or specific barrels may change the flavor profile distillate made with the same ingredients. 

www.jimbeam.com

• Basil Hayden - Also from Jim Beam, Basil Hayden was specifically designed to be the whiskey for non-bourbon drinkers. It is a little pricey and has more muted flavors compared to other options, but is smoother and easier to drink than pretty much anything else. 

Little Smoky Starter Whiskies - The Scotch path

If your goal is to end up drinking scotch or you have less of a sweet tooth, picking a dryer or more smoky whiskey may be better suited to your needs. The whiskey traditions of Japan and India are largely based on the techniques and styles of Scottish Whiskey due to the influence of the British Empire or of early pioneers training in Scotland. These two inoffensive bottles are balanced in all regards while meeting our three objective criteria, but have enough of a smoke influence to start your down the path to enjoying more peat forward bottles. 

• Dewar's White Label - Known for its smooth character, Dewar's White Label is designed to be approachable and enjoyable for beginners. It doesn't overwhelm the palate with complex flavors and is priced to move more than even other mass market blends. Dewar's might be the best blenders in the whisky world, above to produce consistent flavors without any bad tastes at scale. You'll find sweet, smoky, and fruity notes which become more pronounced with age. Dewar's offers age stated blends in 12, 15, and 18 year iterations at price points unheard of for similar tenures elsewhere. There are also varieties with different cask finishing for when you want to branch out.

dewars.com

• Monkey's Shoulder Blended Scotch - 43% ABV - It is 100% malt whisky and does not include any of the cheaper grain whiskey. Floral aromas blend with zesty citrus & fresh fruit along with subtle hints of honey and spiced oak. It won the TAG Global Spirits Awards Best In Show 2024 and TAG Global Spirits Awards Best Buy 2024 in addition to being a r/scotch budget favorite. It is distinctly different from the bourbons, being a little dryer, but has very little smoke character. 

monkeyshoulder.com

Now We Drink! The Training Begins

Though you're welcome to attempt starting neat, I recommend getting a normal rocks glass and pouring in about two "fingers" (the width of two of your fingers side to side) and then adding an ice chunk or 3ish standard ice cubes. The ice will lower the temperature which dulls the tongue a bit and you'll be able to assess how the whiskey gets easier to drink as the ice melts and the percentage alcohol goes down due to dilution. Throw on some good TV, your favorite music, or have some buddies over and just live. Don't obsess over the whiskey itself, just on enjoying the overall experience. Over time, you'll find you don't mind the whiskey sting as much and you can decrease the number of ice cubes down to none. Once you're tasting the whiskey neat, check out a few tasting reviews or videos for your bottle and see if you can find any of the more nuanced flavors. I'll again plug our whiskey tasting guide which has pretty much everything you'll need to know in one place. Don't over indulge! Drinking to excess can reinforce to your body that whiskey is a bad idea, and in those cases maybe it's right. 

I also see people recommend cocktails as a starting place for tasting whiskey, but outside of old fashioneds, the flavor of most of these bottles will be overwhelmed by the mixer. I would instead say that it's okay to add a little bit of water to further dilute the whiskey if you're having trouble. Adding small amounts of water is still done by even experienced tasters as it can serve to shake up the different flavoring chemicals in the whiskey which can be particularly interesting with high octane barrel proofs. 

Choosing Your First Whiskey -The Bottom Line

There's no wrong way to enjoy whiskey as long as you're doing it responsibly. My recommendation is to start with Maker's Mark over ice, take your time, and pick up the more social aspects of the whiskey scene. Welcome aboard!