Whiskey Expert's Favorite Bottles Under $50

I look at whiskey like art, religion, politics, food. There's no best whiskey. It's really just based on your palate. With that said, there are some really good values out there that I think are some pretty remarkable whiskeys. All the whiskeys that I'm going to show are $50 or less. This one, everybody's familiar with Maker's Mark, I think, for the most part. Maker's Mark has two other marks. One's Maker's 46. And then the other one is one of my personal favorites, is Maker's Mark Cask Strength Whiskey. It's a really big, big whiskey. Maker's Mark is also a weeded bourbon, meaning that instead of putting rye in the mash bill, they put in wheat. It's 55.7% alcohol. And by law, to be a whiskey, you have to be at minimum of 40%. So most whiskeys are running in at around 40%, and this is 55. So if you added water, you're getting much more whiskey for your buck. This is an Evans-Williams Single Barrel. I know that this distillate came from a single barrel. They didn't blend it with others. It's saying it's 43.3% alcohol. It was put into oak, meaning after it was distilled, it went into oak in 2003, bottled in 2010. So it's a really, really good, and it's a nicely aged whiskey. You can get this for around 23 bucks. Another one of my favorites is Four Roses. Most people are somewhat familiar with Four Roses. They're Four Roses Single Barrel, an amazing whiskey, such a smooth, easy-drinking whiskey. The ABV on this one is a bit higher as well. I generally, my whiskeys, I tend to go for cask strength or ones that have some bite to it. This is 50%. You can get it for around 35 bucks. There's also some good deals with Scotch. Most people think Scotch is very expensive and out of some people's price range, but there's some big guys out there. Highland Park 12, made in the Orkney Islands. It's one of my favorites. It's a nice, it has a little bit of that peat, but the peat is from Orkney, which the peat is quite a bit sweeter. There's not a lot of big brush there. They have a lot of heather, which is a slow-growing shrub that happens to be sweet. So when that decomposes, you're getting a sweeter peat and it's also aged in sherry casks, so you get that kind of saltiness, that brininess with some sweetness. And you can get this around 45 bucks and that's a 12-year-old single malt Scotch. This is a classic Balvini in the Speyside region of Scotland. They're owned by William Grant. They also own Glenfiddich, which is literally right next door to it. They just produce some fantastic whiskey. This, it says on it, double wood matured in two distinct casks. The two distinct casks were oak, I mean, ex-bourbon barrels and sherry casks. So this one too is about 45 bucks. It depends on where you buy it, of course, but there are some good deals out there.