When you look into it, you'll find that almost every American whiskey --- both the stuff you can get at Safeway and the enthusiast bottles --- rolls up somehow to a large corporation.
Yeah, I'm a scotch man myself (get that "e" out of me whisky), largely because of taste but I do also like the fact that so many great scotches come from family-owned distilleries - of course, even "family-owned" can be a big company with lots of money, but it's still nice that most of them aren't huge companies.
Edit: worth pointing out that there are a bunch of independent distilleries in America, which I'm led to believe by bourbon-lovers make some amazing drinks - but I don't know nearly enough about this area to give examples. It's just that the big companies outnumber and massively out-produce the small ones.
I'm a whiskey person (I drink a lot of rye) and I'm not intended to disparage the distilleries because of their parentage. I think a lot of them got rolled up in the 70s and 80s. Heaven Hill and Sazerac put out some pretty great stuff.
Edit: given the Wondrich reference further down it seems that you are. I've decided that cocktails have an appealing relationship to programming: they're arcane procedures that require specialized knowledge, but unlike software they're done in five minutes and they make you drunk.
I don't avoid it because of, it's just a nice added bonus to the drinks I like (the likes of Talisker). Just the same as I use gmail because I think it's the best option, but it makes me happy when Google do stuff like support LGBT rights :)
In fact, a lot of them are owned by the same big companies. A lot of scotch is aged in used bourbon barrels, so owning bourbon producers makes a lot of sense for scotch producers.
It doesn't help much that you're required to be licensed in the US to distill spirits at all (beer/wine brewing sans license is legal to a point, think a few states might disagree though), and the regulations involved make setting up shop a bit more difficult than setting up a still in the garage.
Well, we also license drivers and doctors. I don't know what a craft distiller's license actually involves, but hopefully it requires a certain amount of cleanliness and correct separation of the alcohol.
This is a cool list, but I'd just remark that most of the distilleries on it are small indie brands with regional (or no) distribution. When you get down to the distilleries on this list with 10 or 20 brands, you're often looking at some of the best regarded whiskeys in the US.
If you read whiskey nerd blogs, you'll sometimes even pick up a backlash against bespoke indie distilleries; whiskey being much easier to do than to do well.
Well they are obvisouly going to be worth a few $$$ just because they sell so much of it.
But the cynical engineer in me assumed that all the "Billy-Bob still pisses in every barrel just like his grand-pappy did in 1869" type advertising, meant that it was actually made in a chemical plant in New Jersey by Union Carbide!
Must admit I've never tried the stuff - always worked on the principle that if it's not a single malt made on Speyside it's not worth drinking.
If you like Speyside scotches, there are almost definitely a bunch of Bourbons you like too. Mild Speysides are as close as Scotland comes to Makers Mark.
Jack Daniels is distilled in Lynchburgh, TN. You can visit them.
I doubt Jack Daniels is going to blow you away. I don't even mix with it. But it's thoroughly drinkable, in the same way that a Coke on ice on a hot day is drinkable even though its origins are dubious (way more so than Jack Daniels).
Also: just because something is easy to find doesn't mean its integrity is compromised. You can get Three Floyds Alpha King in most supermarkets in Chicago. Three Floyds is still a very, very serious brewery, and Alpha King is a serious beer.
Based on how you describe yourself you're right not to have tried JD, you probably wouldn't like it - personally I only drink it with coke when I'm out drinking, not for taste.
But I think limiting yourself to Speyside is foolish. The fact that you do this makes me assume you've tried single malts from other areas, and I also presume that you didn't just try one once and jump to the conclusion that everything not Speyside sucks. So maybe you don't need this advice, but I'll give it anyway.
I'm a big Speyside fan, and most of the time I buy a reasonably expensive bottle that's where it's from, but there are some great bottles from other areas, in particular (for me at least) Islay and the Islands. Talisker for example is like no whisky I've ever drunk, but is pretty fantastic. Laphroaig and Ardbeg are two Islays that have some really nice releases, and even Bowmore, despite being a brand best known for cheap and average bottles in supermarkets, have a few decent ones.
Oh, and even outside Scotland you might be surprised. Ever tried Yamazaki from Japan?
The speyside was a nod to anyone out there that can pronounce Edinburgh and doesn't think that Scotland is in londonshire ;-) And yes Islay malts are wonderful.
I could never understand the "knocking back a drink with a grimace" type drinks though.
Heh, I've spent 95% of my life living in Oxford, I got pretty used to "excuse me, can you tell me how to get to Oxford University?"
What sort of thing are you talking about with the "knocking back.."? For most people the first time you drink any whisky is like that, for many so is the first time you drink beer.
It's not a dumb thing, just lacking a piece of information. Oxford University, and Cambridge too, is not a campus university, it is spread out all over Oxford. When you're stood somewhere near the centre of town (and the centre of Oxford isn't really that big) - which is where most tourists ask the question - chances are if they look around 40% of the buildings will be part of the university, and another 40% will be buildings owned by the university, or by a college, and rented out for profit.
40% is a random figure and probably an exaggeration, but here's a map of the centre of Oxford (i.e. Oxford without suburbs) showing university buildings and colleges in red: http://www.planetware.com/i/map/ENG/oxford-map.jpg (note also how the majority of green spaces are owned by colleges for sport, as well)
Edit: looking closer at that map I see some missing buildings that should be on there, and at least a couple that are smaller than they should be. But I don't know the whole university well enough so maybe there are also some shown too big, or some that shouldn't be on there at all.
Same with vodka, there are vodkas out there that aren't horrible to drink.
In response to excuse-me, personally I drink nice scotch when I want to enjoy a drink, but if I'm drunk and getting drunker, why waste money on something good when I'm not going to appreciate it?
