Recommend a scotch in the 80-100 range.

You gotta find a scotch guide that matches your taste. I match up with Jim Murray's Whisky bible pretty well. If it's a gift for someone, find out what they do and don't like, look through a few guides and find one that matches well with their taste. In lue of the right guide, a good whisky bar or store can help. $$ or age don't equal better scotch. IMO, younger bottlings usually taste better to me than older ones. I also think the std. retail bottlings are better than almost all special bottlings because they can control the quality better.

I know this thread is old, but for $80-100 range - Lagavulin 16 hands down. I've tried their 12 (which is new), 16, 21 (special bottling), and 31 (special bottling). 12 and 21 were not as good as the 16. The 31 was just awesome.

Originally Posted by jfranci3

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You gotta find a scotch guide that matches your taste. I match up with Jim Murray's Whisky bible pretty well. If it's a gift for someone, find out what they do and don't like, look through a few guides and find one that matches well with their taste. In lue of the right guide, a good whisky bar or store can help. $$ or age don't equal better scotch. IMO, younger bottlings usually taste better to me than older ones. I also think the std. retail bottlings are better than almost all special bottlings because they can control the quality better. I know this thread is old, but for $80-100 range - Lagavulin 16 hands down. I've tried their 12 (which is new), 16, 21 (special bottling), and 31 (special bottling). 12 and 21 were not as good as the 16. The 31 was just awesome.
I disagree with this post wholeheartedly. The 12 is not new, it is vintage dated and has been coming out as a cask strength since 2002. It is very good. The 21 is best Lagavulin ever, many people say that it is one of the best scotches ever bottled. Thankfully I have a bottle left. There is no 31, its a 30. I recently bought a rather large sample of it and it is very good, but not 21 good. Also, I assume that the bolded statement is implying that distillery bottlings are of a higher quality than independent bottlings. That neglects the fact that independent bottlers have the ability to cherry pick casks and only bottle them when they think they are ready. Distilleries need to put out pretty much the same bottlings every year. There will always be a Highland Park 12 no matter how ****** the ~12 yo stock of HP the distillery has.

There was a stockpile of the 2005 Talisker bottling of the 25yr old found in Brooklyn recently. Seems like a couple gentlemen secured all the cases and then proceeded to unload them on ebay for ~$150ish (at one point, one of them was selling them for $139 shipped/bottle).

Just out of the OP's price range but the best deal I've seen in a while for a SMS. I can attest to the authenticity of the bottles' contents.

Diageo also just re-released the Talisker 18yr which has been mysteriously absent for the last 18 months or so... those retailers who received it are selling them for less than $80.

Originally Posted by I<3Bacon

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There was a stockpile of the 2005 Talisker bottling of the 25yr old found in Brooklyn recently. Seems like a couple gentlemen secured all the cases and then proceeded to unload them on ebay for ~$150ish (at one point, one of them was selling them for $139 shipped/bottle).

Just out of the OP's price range but the best deal I've seen in a while for a SMS. I can attest to the authenticity of the bottles' contents.

Diageo also just re-released the Talisker 18yr which has been mysteriously absent for the last 18 months or so... those retailers who received it are selling them for less than $80.

Do you have the eBay link?

Those of you who recommended Rosebank, please tell me where you found this. I looked high and low for a bottle (albeit a few years ago) and had no success.

Originally Posted by taxgenius69

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Do you have the eBay link?

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trk...All-Categories

Originally Posted by SwB411

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Those of you who recommended Rosebank, please tell me where you found this. I looked high and low for a bottle (albeit a few years ago) and had no success.

You won't find a distillery bottling of it, the distillery closed. Anything you find will be bottled independently. The most common bottling that I have seen in US is the Gordon Mcphail Rosebank 15. Good luck!

Originally Posted by ama

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I disagree with this post wholeheartedly.

The 12 is not new, it is vintage dated and has been coming out as a cask strength since 2002. It is very good.
The 21 is best Lagavulin ever, many people say that it is one of the best scotches ever bottled. Thankfully I have a bottle left.

There is no 31, its a 30. I recently bought a rather large sample of it and it is very good, but not 21 good.

Also, I assume that the bolded statement is implying that distillery bottlings are of a higher quality than independent bottlings. That neglects the fact that independent bottlers have the ability to cherry pick casks and only bottle them when they think they are ready. Distilleries need to put out pretty much the same bottlings every year. There will always be a Highland Park 12 no matter how ****** the ~12 yo stock of HP the distillery has.

I can accept that you disagree with my statement, that's fine. Telling me that I'm wrong on the years is not. They were special bottling (or the label was wrong). In any case, telling me I'm wrong AND telling me my opinion on a particular year makes you a douche.

Though independent bottlers can theoretically cherry pick barrels, in my (limited) experience they generally haven't been better than the distillery's MTS retail offerings. I don't know if I have bad taste, the bottlers are angling for distinctive barrels, distilleries can smooth out rough edges by mixing many barrels together, or ind. bottlers get the barrels that have deviated from the desired track rather than the prime barrels. I suspect it is all of those reasons and varies by distillery.

HP point - I think it also needs to be considered that Highland can and does ship most of it's juice off to various blenders (Famous Grouse primarily - according to the internet, which is never wrong). I'm not sure what FG's qc standards are (and they probably have some), but they can probably ship 90%+ of their "deviated" stock off to them (or throw it in port or sherry barrels for a bit and call it special). That takes a huge portion of the 'bad year' risk out HP worries.

Originally Posted by ama

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Oban Distiller's Edition?
Yup, thats the one.

Originally Posted by jfranci3

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I can accept that you disagree with my statement, that's fine. Telling me that I'm wrong on the years is not. They were special bottling (or the label was wrong). In any case, telling me I'm wrong AND telling me my opinion on a particular year makes you a douche.

Though independent bottlers can theoretically cherry pick barrels, in my (limited) experience they generally haven't been better than the distillery's MTS retail offerings. I don't know if I have bad taste, the bottlers are angling for distinctive barrels, distilleries can smooth out rough edges by mixing many barrels together, or ind. bottlers get the barrels that have deviated from the desired track rather than the prime barrels. I suspect it is all of those reasons and varies by distillery.

HP point - I think it also needs to be considered that Highland can and does ship most of it's juice off to various blenders (Famous Grouse primarily - according to the internet, which is never wrong). I'm not sure what FG's qc standards are (and they probably have some), but they can probably ship 90%+ of their "deviated" stock off to them (or throw it in port or sherry barrels for a bit and call it special). That takes a huge portion of the 'bad year' risk out HP worries.

ama's right for the most part. The 12yr had a stint in the U.S. and then went away for a while and then recently returned as a 2009 bottling. I've never seen a Diageo bottling (or any bottling for that matter) of a 31yr Lagavulin... and I've seen a lot of Lagavulins (even a couple Murray Mc's, but no where near 31yr).

Talking about Famous Grouse or any other blenders is straying from the topic at hand... you rather boldly stated that you think quality is somehow better controlled with standard distillery offerings compared to "special" bottlings. Whether you mean limited releases (like Diageo's line of Distiller's Editions) or independent bottlings, making a blanket comment like one will be of higher quality than the next is absurd.

We have two extremes... something as small as an old style quarter cask will only yield less than 200 bottles. They'll be pretty much consistent throughout the entire run, but whether or not the whisky is quality depends on a thousand different factors.

On the other end is something like that Glenfiddich 12yr we see every single year forever and ever. It'll be a vatting of countless barrels and it'll be up to Glenfiddich's crusty old noses and tongues to make sure this year's batches are the same as last year's and the year before. But as time has shown us across most of Scotland's distilleries, these standard bottlings evolve over the years (for better or for worse). It's remarkable how consistent the profile stays for how many barrels goes into a run, but it'll never be as consistent as a single barrel. Just because a distillery puts out a standard offering does not mean it's quality by any means (i.e. Macduff or Arran).

Now, if you're talking about a single specific distillery like Talisker and are telling us that the DE, 175th, 57 North, etc. aren't as good as the standard 10yr or 18yr, it may or may not be true. But there isn't a single logical/rational/explainable reason why.

And on the topic of independent bottlers, yes, it's a crapshoot whether or not a bottle will be good or not. But I've had uncountable drams from independent bottlers that absolutely killed the distillery's official offerings without a single rough edge to smooth out (best example I can think of is Jura).

Basically, this longwinded response can be summed up by saying, sure, with indys, you probably don't know what you're getting (just like ANY new whisky you're trying) unless you've had a dram from that barrel already. You more or less know what to expect from the distiller's standard offerings if you're already familiar with them (of course). But saying a standard distiller offering is almost always better than something non-standard/independent from the same distillery is just... lack of experience. The world of whisk(e)y is far too vast to make generalized and blanket comments like these:

Originally Posted by jfranci3

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IMO, younger bottlings usually taste better to me than older ones. I also think the std. retail bottlings are better than almost all special bottlings because they can control the quality better.

Bacon, you and ama really know your scotch whisky

The more you know, the less you understand.

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All the alcohol must have killed my brain cells.

get him 3 handles of famous grouse. they should be around $35 each

Originally Posted by I<3Bacon

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ama's right for the most part. The 12yr had a stint in the U.S. and then went away for a while and then recently returned as a 2009 bottling. I've never seen a Diageo bottling (or any bottling for that matter) of a 31yr Lagavulin... and I've seen a lot of Lagavulins (even a couple Murray Mc's, but no where near 31yr).

Talking about Famous Grouse or any other blenders is straying from the topic at hand... you rather boldly stated that you think quality is somehow better controlled with standard distillery offerings compared to "special" bottlings. Whether you mean limited releases (like Diageo's line of Distiller's Editions) or independent bottlings, making a blanket comment like one will be of higher quality than the next is absurd.

We have two extremes... something as small as an old style quarter cask will only yield less than 200 bottles. They'll be pretty much consistent throughout the entire run, but whether or not the whisky is quality depends on a thousand different factors.

On the other end is something like that Glenfiddich 12yr we see every single year forever and ever. It'll be a vatting of countless barrels and it'll be up to Glenfiddich's crusty old noses and tongues to make sure this year's batches are the same as last year's and the year before. But as time has shown us across most of Scotland's distilleries, these standard bottlings evolve over the years (for better or for worse). It's remarkable how consistent the profile stays for how many barrels goes into a run, but it'll never be as consistent as a single barrel. Just because a distillery puts out a standard offering does not mean it's quality by any means (i.e. Macduff or Arran).

Now, if you're talking about a single specific distillery like Talisker and are telling us that the DE, 175th, 57 North, etc. aren't as good as the standard 10yr or 18yr, it may or may not be true. But there isn't a single logical/rational/explainable reason why.

And on the topic of independent bottlers, yes, it's a crapshoot whether or not a bottle will be good or not. But I've had uncountable drams from independent bottlers that absolutely killed the distillery's official offerings without a single rough edge to smooth out (best example I can think of is Jura).

Basically, this longwinded response can be summed up by saying, sure, with indys, you probably don't know what you're getting (just like ANY new whisky you're trying) unless you've had a dram from that barrel already. You more or less know what to expect from the distiller's standard offerings if you're already familiar with them (of course). But saying a standard distiller offering is almost always better than something non-standard/independent from the same distillery is just... lack of experience. The world of whisk(e)y is far too vast to make generalized and blanket comments like these:

+1

Ignoring indy bottlings because of supposed "rough edges" isn't the wisest course of action if one wants to expand their whisky knowledge and palate.

Now I'm torn.

I stopped by the shop to return the Laphroaig 30 and he said he may be able to get a bottle of the Lagavulin 21 and trade. I was planning to grab three or four bottles in exchange for the Laphroaig, but what say you?

lefty

I just got a bottle of Springbank 18 from a client and it is killer.