The bartender's friend - of all of the whiskies we've discussed with bartenders over the years, none have been recommended more often than this.

Young enough that the peat smoke influence will still be strong, but old enough to get a balanced, mature tasting experience with enough oak maturation.

Up in the somewhat remote Orkney Islands, an archipelago located off the northern coast of Scotland, is the widely beloved Highland Park distillery.

This has to be one of the most hyped up distilleries that we've found through our online research.

Due to specific wording in the current iteration of the English single malt rules, copper pot still distillation can be combined with column still distillation.

We don't generally place much stock in the appearance of a bottle and its label, but we do like the look of this one a lot.

In addition to the sherry casks, this whisky gets the obligatory Mizunara maturation that this brand is known for; it spends three months at sea in these casks, which are supposed to impart a salty, seaside flavor to the liquid.

This is a step up from the entry level Redbreast 12 Year in multiple ways: it gets an additional three years of maturation, and it's bottled at a strength of 46% ABV, up from 40% on the 12 Year.

One interesting point from the brand is on its website - they actually give a recommended food pairing for this whisky.

Aged for 50 years before bottling in 2014, this Invergordon single grain comes from a single cask.

With a distillation vintage of 1992, this is an unpeated Bruichladdich aged in an unknown assortment of casks.

The smokiness or peat in a whisky will generally decline with more time spent aging in a cask.

This 23 Year bottling has the preferable strength of 46% ABV, and has the benefit of being un-colored and not chill filtered.

The unique mashbill is really the point of interest here: this is made entirely from low-yield sweet corn grain.

This is a $25 bourbon bottled at 45% ABV (90 Proof) with no stated age... or really much other information of any sort.

Distilled at MGP (Midwest Grain Product), this rye sports a mashbill made up of 95% rye grain and 5% malted barley.

On a trip to the Rockies a couple of years ago, we stopped at Fraser Valley Distilling in Fraser, Colorado.

It combines ex-bourbon barrel matured whisky with ex-sherry cask whisky, which, according to the brand, brings a balanced character.

Yummy, but the flavors are very much focused in one direction with the heavy sherry influence, and it's anything but subtle.

The best-selling single malt Scotch whisky in the world, at least as far as we can find - both the bottle specifically (the 12 Year), as well as the brand in general (Glenfiddich).