Tee Off With These Whiskey Selections

Aged a minimum of 4 years and bottled at 80 proof, the Evan Williams Green is a 'value bourbon' and a good buy (rarely over $10 for 750ml). A must have for batching cocktails, punches or simply an everyday bourbon. Want more bang in your glass go Black or White Label.

Green Label is similar to the black-labeled Old No. 7, but this Jack Daniel's bottling gets its whiskey from the first floor of the warehouse. It's a slightly different bottling as a result. This has limited availability in the US and overseas so it may command a higher price for those seeking rare bottles.

An Oa (pronounced an oh) is a peated Islay single malt comprised of whiskies that were aged in several types of casks of including Pedro Ximenez, virgin oak, and ex-bourbon. These whiskies were then married together in a large French oak vat in Ardbeg's Gathering Room. The whisky is named for the Mull of Oa located on the Oa peninsula. This is the most southwesterly point of Islay. This Ardbeg release marks the first permanent addition to their portfolio in close to ten years. Bottled at 46.6% ABV, this is non chill-filtered. Released September 2017.

Bushmills 10 Year is the youngest single malt expression for the brand. It is triple distilled in copper pot stills and is aged in a combination of ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. (SRP $49.99)

Perhaps because Springbank Distillery is family owned rather than being in the hands of a large corporation, they can be a bit more experimental. This distillery employs three different recipes and ergo three different names of single malts: Hazelburn, Longrow, and Springbank. They vary in the number of times they are distilled and the different levels of peat for their malts. Springbank is distilled 2 1/2 times and is lightly peated.

Made by Heaven Hill Distillery, this Henry McKenna bottling is a Bottled-In-Bond Kentucky Straight Bourbon. Aged 10 years, this release is also a single barrel release with each bottle bearing both the bottling date and the barrel number. Single barrel whiskeys are unique bottlings so your mileage may vary, but you'll generally be sipping a rye-drinker's bourbon. Big, bold, spicy and a great choice for an Old Fashioned--go easy on the sugar, amp up the bitters a bit and garnish with a single orange peel.

W.L. Weller — named after William Larue Weller — is a wheated bourbon brand now owned by the Sazerac Company which acquired it in 1999. Made at the Buffalo Trace Distillery, Weller Special Reserve is the entry bottling to the Weller portfolio which features wheat instead of rye as the flavoring grain in the bourbon. It is a no-age statement release which is bottled at 90 proof.

Arriving in the US in early 2014, the Green Spot is a single pot still whiskey produced at the Midleton Distillery and made exclusively for Mitchell & Sons. These wine merchants would buy casks of pot still whiskey and age in ex-sherry casks. These days, sherry casks only amount for 25% of the barrels with the remainder being ex-bourbon. The name is derived from the dab of paint used to identify the barrels by age, which in the Green Spot's case, is 7-8 years.

Johnnie Walker Green Label is the only blended malt whisky in the Johnnie Walker core portfolio unlike the others which are blended whiskies incorporating grain whiskies in those blends. Included in the Green Label blend are single malts from Skye (Talisker), Islay (Caol Ila), and Speyside (Cragganmore and Linkwood). Each of these single malt whiskies were aged a minimum of 15 years. While the Green Label was discontinued for a short time in 2012, it did return permanently to the portfolio in 2016 due to popular demand. (SRP $64.99 for 750ml)

Laphroaig 10 Year is the flagship bottling from the Islay distillery. The peated single malt is aged for a minimum of 10 years in ex-bourbon barrels, many sourced from Maker's Mark in Kentucky. Laphroaig is one of only a handful of distilleries in Scotland with its own malting floor used in part of its production. Using a peat kiln built in 1840, the malted barley is cold-smoked for 10-12 hours. Then it's fully dried using hot air. NOTE: Sold at 40% ABV or 43% ABV depending on your market.