You’ve Never Heard of the #1 Whisky in the World

When you think of big whiskey brands, what's the best-selling whiskey in the United States? Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, Crown Royal, those are giants, but they don't even come close. What if I told you the top-selling whiskey brand in the entire world isn't even sold in most American liquor stores? No labels, no expectations, just a brown bag, the taste, and a whiskey pipeline so big that this sells nearly 12 bottles every second, all day, all year. Are you serious? Shut up. Oh, that's insane. And I strongly doubt you've ever heard of it. We're opening the bottle, pouring it blind, and letting some whiskey-loving Americans tell us what they really think, right now. What's up? How you doing? Good. I'm Rex. Hi. Yeah, good to meet you. I'm a random guy in the woods with a bag of booze. Beautiful, I love that. What is this? Hmm. I'm torn. It smells like, um... Uh... It smells like rubbing alcohol. It immediately jumped out to be gasoline. Oh, man, okay. Muted flavor? Like vodka and sawdust? I'm looking for something in there, but... Man, it's really light, I can hardly smell it. There's not a lot there. Vodka smell with just a little bit of, like, sweet... Is it tequila? Band-aids, uh, cleaning, hospital-y, wrapping wounds up. Whiskey, but it's just neutral spirit mixed with a little bit of bourbon. Um, but there's a hint of sweetness in there. Last year alone, this sold over 31 million cases, that's 12 bottles per case, more than any other whiskey brand on the planet. But in the U.S., most people have never heard the name. And get this, it became the best-selling whiskey on the planet in a country where liquor ads are banned. The obviously interesting thing about this spirit is the scale. But is it good? This tastes like booze. Yeah, just booze for me. Notes, booze. It's really mild. Not a lot to it. Little bit of vanilla, it's a little flat. It's not super sweet, but... It's a little sweet on, like, the back a little bit. God, that sucks ass, dude. This is a cocktail drink. Smells like rubbing alcohol and is a little bit flat. Yeah, it's getting worse. Oh, okay. Children's apple juice? Not quite vodka, it's what I expect. Yeah, it's even got that dirty vodka aftertaste. With a hint of, like, a cookie. It's gotten more watery. Sorry. I tried, I tried. I hate this. Sometimes you do the, like, spinny thing to hope that it kind of clears out and opens up a little bit. And sometimes it really just doesn't. As far as shots go, of just straight liquor, not awful. It's not hard to drink at all. I feel like if you put a mixture with it, you're going to overpower it. It's so soft on its own. Yeah, it tastes like neutral spirit mixed with something. It doesn't impress judges, but it does sell bottles. Millions of them. It's the Coca-Cola of whiskey. Think fast food. It's built to be familiar and cheap. And it dominates. But does it deserve to? Score of one to ten, what are you going to give that? I'm going to give this a solid one. Five. Four. Out of ten, probably, like, six. I'm going to say a six on that. Uh, it's a two. I mean, I'll give it a five, because I'm not going to hate on anyone, right? I wouldn't drink this. I'll give a 3.5 on this. But that doesn't stop hundreds of millions of people from drinking it every year as a whiskey. It's not deep, but it's dependable. Like a dog that never leaves your side, but he was hit by a car a few years ago, and now he's kind of... Yeah. But dogs are great. And that kind of love is priceless. How much do you think it costs? Um, I don't know, probably, like, 30 bucks? $19.99. Some bottom shelf $12 bottle. I would probably say it's in the $40 range. Okay. $60 range? 18 bucks. 10 bucks. Somewhere in the 20s range, maybe, like, 22? In its home country, this is five or ten bucks. Here, I picked it up for $22.72. 22? Exactly $22. Okay, seriously? Yeah, you nailed it. Thank you. 22, so it's imported. So I was country of origin priced, correct? If I had to pay for this, I wouldn't. That seems right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm okay with that. For five to ten bucks? It's not going to be, like, our first drink of the night, but... This episode is sponsored by Original Green. Brianna can tell you. Father's Day's coming up. Original Green, these are watches and rings from used whiskey barrel wood, army surplus wood, guitar wood, German beer barrels if they're really into beer, Indian motorcycles. Every piece is unique. We got the latest Jack Daniels watch. I haven't put eyes on it yet. Have you seen it? Yes. Of course you have. I looked at it. Let's show them first so you're last. You've done... You're doing nothing right now. You're doing nothing. That's a nice watch. It doesn't really need a battery. Kinetic charging, and if you look at the back, you see this thing moving? That is what charges the watch. Oh, that's pretty sick. Automatic movement, flame charred oak finish, Jack Daniels whiskey barrels, skeleton dial, and the... Kyle, what do you think of that watch? Pretty. That's cool. So if you want something that is beautiful, well-made, and very unique that leans into something that they love... You're welcome. We have your Father's Day covered. So to unlock an extra discount and to save over 150 bucks for their Father's Day sale, you click the link to OriginalGrain.com. It's in the description, and it'll auto-apply a custom code just for you. You'll save an extra 50 bucks on top of their $100 off Father's Day sale. Can I know what this is yet? Can I pull it out? Have you ever heard of that? Mr. Dowels? Yeah. I have never heard of Mr. Dowels. No idea. No. Never heard of it. No, I have not. Reserve Spirit Whiskey. McDowels. And the country of origin is... a smooth and easy blend of imported scotch, Indian malts, Indian malts. and grain spirit. And I thought it was tequila. That's humbling. Okay. Well, I was not expecting that. McDowels from India, huh? Is that whiskey in your hands? Yes. That is the number one best-selling whiskey by... Shut up! ...on planet Earth. Are you serious? In the world? In the world. Oh, that's insane. Yeah. No way. Interesting! Yeah, I've never seen this. Like, where does this ship to? I don't know if I've ever seen it. I give it a five. For reference, it would take 50,000 tanker trucks to transport the 1.5 billion liters of spirit they move every year. That's a traffic jam over 800 miles long. It's about the distance from New York City to Orlando, Florida. Dang. No. Why? That is unbelievable. Oh, my gosh. In the States, we often talk about cases you can move. We've never talked about the amount of tanker trucks of Jack Daniels that get sold. Smooth and easy. Not so smooth or easy for me, but... It says whiskey? Yeah. According to American standards? Technically, based on our standards of whiskey. They don't have any. Oh, wait. What were you going to say? Not whiskey. Interesting. So what's in here? This is where it gets weird. There's no mash bill or age statement. It's made mostly from molasses-based neutral spirits, a sugarcane byproduct, so it's more rum than whiskey by American standards. It's blended with a little grain whiskey, either imported scotch or their own grain whiskey. Then it's colored and flavored to resemble Western whiskey. It looks like whiskey. It's labeled whiskey. There's not a different word for it in their native tongue. They call it whiskey. But by Western standards, it does not qualify. Because it said Mr. Dow's, I thought it sounded fake. You know, because, like, you would want McDow's, right? And this label, too. Not, like, re-bottled. Funny thing about the label. McDow's might be a giant in India, but it started raising eyebrows overseas because of the name. McDow's. It sounds pretty Scottish. So what do you do when the Scotch Whiskey Association comes at you? Nothing. They're in Scotland. No authority in India, so who cares? But then you remember your parent company, Diageo, one of the biggest whiskey corporations in the world. They definitely care about Scotland. So you change the label slightly. Very, very slightly. Outside of India, McDow's quietly became Mr. Dow's. You drop the Mc, tone down the Highland imagery and keep it moving. Same liquid, new name. I didn't tell people Mr. or Mc, and some people read this as McDow's, other people read this as Mr. Dow's. If you look really closely, there's an R there. It was officially launched in the 1960s, but its roots trace back to a Scottish trader named Angus McDowell, who opened a liquor business in colonial India in the 1800s. And over time, it evolved into this. This, being made mostly from molasses, throws the core idea of whiskey, 100% grain, right out the window. And you might chalk that up to weird outlier countries, until you remember India sells more whiskey than any other country in the world. They're about half of all whiskey consumption over there. And at this point, you might think that India just doesn't have good taste in whiskey. Maybe you can't taste anything past a curry so hot it melts steel beams, but they're no stranger to the good stuff. India's whiskey market has grown so much that it even became the number one Scotch import market by volume in recent years. For context, let's see how McDowell's No. 1 compares to the other top-selling whiskeys on Earth. At No. 2, Royal Stag, Indian, 27.9 million cases. It also blends imported Scotch with molasses-based neutral spirit. No. 3 in the world, you'll find, is Officer's Choice, 23.4 million cases made with the same approach, grain spirit, molasses-derived alcohol, and a whisper of Scotch. No. 4 is Imperial Blue, 22.8 million cases, Indian, same molasses plus grain blend recipe. There is a pattern here. Then at No. 5, Johnny Walker, the global face of Scotch with 22.1 million cases. It's the only brand on this list that meets traditional whiskey standards across every market. So what do we do with McDowell's No. 1? This is what you use to maybe clean a wound with or something. It looks like it could be mouthwash. Now, if you mixed it with something... I'm sure it's good with some Coca-Cola. You pour it in some Coke or whatever. I would say Coke is probably a solid mixer for this. Even over ice, that's going to kind of water it down. It already tastes kind of watered down. I would say best-selling very rarely correlates with best taste. So the key is to make medium-flavored, highly questionable whiskey, and you can sell tanker trucks of it. Way to go, India. I mean, a little loose and fast with the whiskey terms like Canada, it sounds like. But outside of that, congratulations, guys. You're rich. Words have meaning. So what even is whiskey? Do you think it's just a spirit only made from grain? That's pretty good. But quinoa is a grain. This stuff may taste more like whiskey than that. No coloring allowed. Okay, talk to Scotland. There's plenty of high-end scotch bottles with coloring. It's got to be aged in oak. Ireland. They typically use oak because it's the best. But their rules just say wood barrels. So maybe whiskey just has to be aged. You can legally make a bourbon if the new-make spirit sits in a new barrel for one single second before getting bottled. Check the rules. Here's the truth. If you're looking for a worldwide definition of whiskey, it doesn't exist. Or if it does, it's basically just brown with probably some grain involved. If you're into whiskey, really into it, you learn that everything is contextual. It's regional. And it depends on what you care about. For now, do you care enough about this to put it on your shelf? Probably not. No. No! I mean, no thank you. I might. Potentially. If it was five bucks, it would just sit there forever. No. Not even a chance. I'm not drinking a whole lot of $10 bottled whiskey these days. Not even a chance as a mixer. No. Not even if it was free. I don't want it. But, I mean, maybe because it's number one sold by far. And that's actually a great... Just the fact that it's what you just told me and it's from India, that kind of makes it kind of interesting and weird. So maybe it's only, what, 22 bucks? Just to tell the story? Because I love telling the story of a bottle. Who wants the number one in the world? I mean, it's worth $22. And then a brave soul that dares, I'll be more than happy to let him indulge. That'd be fun. But otherwise, that would never pick up. I would never. Take it away. That's so bad. That's why in the whiskey tribe, the number one rule is simple. The best whiskey is whiskey you like to drink the way you like to drink it. Am I the only one that liked it? Sonny! You liked it? I thought for what it was, there's a sweetness to it. I'm so sorry for saying that. If you like this, we have different way of things tasting in our mouths good. And that's okay. Wise words indeed. So wise, in fact, I think they should be immortalized on t-shirts so that we never forget. More importantly, Brianna never forgets that she said them. Link in the description down below. This t-shirt. I'm getting one. And you know what? I may get a few. You know. But we may be getting lost in the weeds here. Who should decide what whiskey really is? Me. I get to decide. It's official. This isn't whiskey. Sorry. It's gotta be grain. But that's my point. Everyone has their own idea of what a real whiskey is. So what is the most authentic, quintessential whiskey whiskey to you? Or technically not real whiskey but still good in a bottle? I'll see you in the comments. Cheers, y'all.