As someone that loves to talk to people about whiskey, it’s a question I’ve gotten asked many times, and one I’ve contemplated even more. The question always shifts slightly, the words changing, always dancing around the same idea. What’s your go to whiskey? If you could only drink one whiskey, what would it be? What’s the one whiskey you’d always keep on hand if you could? I have my standard responses for various types of whiskey, and I want to distill those thoughts into a single essential collection in this post. These are the bottles that I would keep if I only had a small liquor cabinet’s worth of space to work with, including all the other spirits that make up a well rounded selection.  They’re not necessarily my favorites or the best selection possible for a home bar, but they are the essentials.

The first consideration I made when trying to make my list was what types of whiskey do I have to have at all times? I needed a Bourbon and I needed a Rye. These are the whiskies that are at the forefront of the American whiskey boom and not having a bottle of either would be a mistake. Not to mention that besides sipping, both Bourbon and Rye are essential parts of countless cocktails. I needed a Scotch. Scotch is what started it all and in my mind is what you think of when you hear the word “whiskey.” But if you’re including Scotch, do you include just one? Do you have a bottle for every region? Or just the biggest regions? In the end, I decided to go with one Single Malt and one Blended Scotch. An essential list can’t be too bloated and having both a blend and Single Malt I think perfectly represents Scotch and its presence in the whiskey world. Finally, I needed an Irish Whiskey. If you walk into almost any bar in America, Jameson or some other basic Irish is present. Its near ubiquity in the States necessitates its presence in any essential whiskey list of mine.

Now, there are other types and regions of whiskey I could have included. Canadian whiskey commands a large portion of the American whiskey market even when only the most mass produced brands are represented here. I couldn’t bring myself to include a basic Canadian like Crown or Canadian Club because I don’t keep them on my shelf now and have never been much of a well whiskey drinker myself. If I was someone who often ordered a whiskey coke or whiskey ginger (drinks I still love), maybe one of these mainstream Canadian whiskies would be essential for me. I certainly wouldn’t judge anyone who put it on their own essential list, but it didn’t make mine. There’s also World Whisky to consider. It’s a region that is exploding as much as any other, constantly bringing new and interesting bottles to the shelves of liquor stores. Five years ago I wouldn’t have guessed in a dozen tries that an Indian whiskey would soon become one of the most universally stocked world whiskies in liquor stores, but Paul John is everywhere these days. Along with brands like Ka Va Lan, Milk & Honey, and many Japanese whiskies, World Whisky is better than ever and growing every year, but mainly due to an unfounded skepticism for many of these brands, I don’t find myself pulling the trigger on many bottles I see at liquor stores. As I continue to try new things and expand my whiskey palate, I could see a world whisky like Santory Toki or Paul Johns to make it onto a future edition of my essential list.

And then there are the two regions of whiskey that I wanted to include so badly, but felt didn’t currently fit the list as I had constructed it, those two regions being American Single Malt and Speyside Scotch. As you’ll soon see, the Single Malt I chose for the essentials list was an Islay scotch. I love peated whiskey and in the end decided that the one Single Malt I’d want to keep around had to come from that beautiful little island. However, I heavily considered also adding a Speyside to the list. It’s the largest region of Scotch by far, probably takes up the most space of any Scotch selection at a liquor store, and has some of the most well known brands in all of Scotchdum such as Macallan and Glenfiddich. What it came down to in the exclusion of this region was that the two bottles I was deciding between for this region, Craigellachie and Cragganmore, are two that aren’t as widely available as I think an essential whiskey should be. This same line of thinking applies doubly so for American Single Malts. There are several American Single Malts that I think could be worthy of mention on an essential whiskey list such as Westland, Balcones, Stranahan’s, or even Cedar Ridge with their Quintessential blend. However, it’s not yet guaranteed that you’ll find any of these in your local liquor store as American Single Malts are still too niche to have become as widely available as Bourbon or Rye or their direct competitors in Scotch. Until there’s an American Single Malt section in your average mom and pop liquor store, it will be tough for me to justify including such bottles on an essentials list, although my sentiment on that front could change over time.

So, in the end, I ended up with five bottles for this first essentials list. They are all bottles that represent the most prevalent regions of whiskey, they are all widely available in almost any decent liquor store, they are all reasonably priced and won’t cost you an arm and a leg, and, most importantly, they are all great bottles of whiskey in their own right.

Here they are, Fetter’s Essentials:

Bourbon – Wild Turkey 101

            Wild Turkey is the bottle that I have long considered to be the best bourbon on the market for your money. It’s slowly creeping up in price along with everything else, but you can still get a bottle for under $30 and for that price it is hard to beat. The mix of cherry, cinnamon, and subtle vanilla is wonderful, and it drinks smooth for its proof. Additionally, the extra proof allows it to stand out well in cocktails and I personally use it almost any time a cocktail calls for bourbon. It’s a bottle I will always have on my shelf if I can help it.

Rye – Rittenhouse Rye

            I tend to think of Rittenhouse as the Goldilocks of Rye whiskey. While Rye does have the potential to produce quite unique flavors, I generally think of Rye as existing on a spectrum of flavor that ranges from spicy to sweet. The spicy side of Rye leans into the sharp pepper notes and tends to be drier, while sweeter Rye brings anise sweetness to the fore. Rittenhouse, to me, lands perfectly in the middle of that spectrum with a great balance of Rye spice and Rye sweetness, making it the bottle that I want to have on my shelf over any other Rye.

Blended Scotch – Monkey Shoulder

            While Johnnie Walker takes most of the oxygen in the blended Scotch realm, Monkey Shoulder has quietly become the favorite blended Scotch of many a whiskey nut. It tones down the smokiness from JW ever so slightly and turns up the caramel and vanilla in a way that makes it such a pleasant whiskey to sip on. It’s a shame that it’s climbed to close to $40 a bottle in most places, as it used to be under $30, but still worth the purchase every time.

Single Malt Scotch – Laphroaig 10

            Picking a Single Malt Scotch was the hardest of all the essential whiskey decisions I made, but as this is my own personal essential list and the fact that I adore peated whiskey, I felt that it was most appropriate for the Single Malt selection to come from Islay, and while I do personally prefer both Ardbeg and Lagavulin among the big three Islay distilleries, there isn’t a more quintessential Islay whiskey to me than Laphroaig. It is the one you will find almost exclusively when bars include smoky whisky in their selection and it was the first one that I tried when getting into Scotch, and so I’ll always have it around.

Irish – Powers

            This is definitely the newest addition to this list, as I discovered my love for this bottle fairly recently in comparison to the other essential bottles. Before coming across Powers, I would have chosen Jameson or Jameson Caskmates Stout as my Irish of choice to keep in the home, but Powers has overtaken both. It has more depth than plain Jameson and has a richer cream note than the Stout Edition while also being more available than that bottle. It is a great and affordable Irish whiskey that is distinct from its immediate peers in a way that elevates it for me.

There is the Fetter Essentials whiskey line. I have named this the first edition because I want to come back to this idea at some point in the distant future and anticipate that my tastes and preferences could change and expand in that time. There is no planned or exact time that I’m giving it, though, so this will be the essential list indefinitely until I decide to revisit it. Cheers!