It depends. Are you sink-or-swim or are you wade-in-slowly? If you’re an all-in kind of person then screw it, drop a couple hundred on a top shelf whiskey and see how it goes.
However, if you are a wader, if you’re a person who proceeds with caution, the kind of girl who reads a map before you leave, the kind of guy who plots it all out on a spreadsheet, then you might want to consider the corpus whiskum before your first purchase.
But first, let’s talk about you, whiskey beginner
Who are you? What’s your palette like? How do you take your coffee? These questions are relevant to understanding your personal flavor profile. Whenever I’m pouring a whiskey for beginners, I ask them these questions:
How do you take your coffee?
How one takes one’s coffee is a very good indicator of their beverage flavor palette. Your morning coffee is a deeply personal couple of minutes and the flavor profile you choose to spend time with defines your taste profile. While it isn’t a 1:1 correlation, it offers a host an excellent jumping-off point for answering a newbie’s question of what whiskey is good for beginners.
BLACK—NO SUGAR
You’re a purist. This is dangerous territory because your palette, far from being blank and bitter and anti-social, is delicately refined. You’re probably more likely to appreciate a whiskey that’s high and tight. You can handle a stronger whiskey for your brown liquor debut. You can start out with the younger whiskies. These whiskies have only been aged for a few years. They’re immature. Full of attitude and strong as hell.
BLACK—WITH SUGAR
You straddle the divide between two worlds. You are master of your universe and you do not care for bullshit in any form, especially coffee. Black with sugar indicates a deeperm darker flavor profile, which can only be met with a whiskey that’s dark and sweet. Maverick’s Barrel Proof Straight Bourbon may be the sweetest bourbon in all of bourbondom. It tastes like the slightly caramelized corner of a home cooked pound cake. It is remarkably smooth.
CREAM AND SUGAR
You’re a traditionalist. You drink your coffee like you face the world, with sweetness and a creamy disposition. You hang out at the VFW on Tuesdays and you go to bed at 10pm every night. You don’t use the S word because it’s just one short slick slope to the F word and you’re just not that edgy. But you want to drink a decent whiskey, a flavorful whiskey, a robust whiskey that is also smooth and approachable. Last Feather makes a wheat-forward rye that delivers a sipping experience so smooth and delicious you’ll think you’re drinking a smooth bourbon. But you’re not. You edgy weirdo.
JUST CREAM
You’re British. You moved to America to pursue a career in competitive golf clapping and things are going well. You’ve been a Scotch girl from way back but now you want to open yourself up to new experiences. Go native. But you’re a psychopath who drinks a ‘flat white,’ the kind of malaprop hot beverage that marks you as a danger to your community. How can you do this? How can you ruin . . . you know what? It’s none of my business, love. Drink hour psycho hot milk coffee. What whiskey is best for beginners who hate their morning joe? None of them. Please just go away.
