Twenty years ago, the path of Scotch was charted by Johnnie Walker and ran through the Glens—that is, Glenlivet, Glenfiddich, and Glenmorangie. New drinkers were often advised to start with the basics, like top-selling blends and entry-level single malts. From there they might be directed to explore Scotland’s different whisky regions, each one supposedly boasting a uniform set of flavors and characteristics. There was almost a prescribed process for getting into Scotch, every step governed by rules like “always use a tasting glass” and “start with the youngest whisky, then work your way up.”

This kind of structure made sense in its time. In the early 2000s, Scotch was newly on the upswing after a stagnant period. Information was harder to come by in an era before the ubiquitous smartphone. Newcomers didn’t have a lot of resources to answer their whisky questions, outside of brand representatives or the odd blogger. And the landscape of the category was very different from today, with fewer distilleries and much less emphasis on luxury and collecting.

Nowadays, though, people starting to explore Scotch for the first time are more educated than their predecessors. Some are crossing over from bourbon or tequila, already versed in the vocabulary and practices of spirits connoisseurship. Many, maybe even most, are critical thinkers, skeptical of goofy marketing and savvy about digging into claims that don’t quite add up.

It still makes sense for newcomers to try and know the old “level one” whiskies. Macallan Sherry Oak, Oban 14, and other bestsellers remain important reference points. But they’re no longer the entirety of the canon, especially not for drinkers looking to explore the full breadth of Scotch. 

Instead, let me suggest an additional set of bottles, each chosen for being representative of something important about today’s Scotch landscape: a style, a key trend or milestone, a flavor that shouldn’t be overlooked. Some of these whiskies are common on bar lists; others you might have to visit a specialist to try. Call them new classics, if you want; fixtures of the Scotch category that help you, the drinker, understand and appreciate it more deeply.  

Kilchoman 100% Islay

The first truly seed-to-sip single malt of the modern era, made with grain grown right next door, malted on the distillery’s old-school malting floor using local peat, and distilled, matured, and bottled on-site. What makes it even more remarkable is that this all takes place on Islay, a location where barley growing is challenged by the weather and where most other distilleries send their whisky off-island to be aged and bottled. 100% Islay is currently hitting 9 years old and getting better all the time. It’s heavily peated (50 ppm) to satisfy the smokeheads and matured in a balanced mix of bourbon and oloroso sherry, which serve to showcase the distillery character with clarity and bracing straightforwardness. Proof that choosing to do things in a more difficult way can be both deeply delicious and commercially viable.

An Indie Bottling of Hard-to-Find Whisky

Although single malt gets all the glory these days, the Scotch industry was built on blends, and many distilleries exist just to supply that side of the business. You’ll almost never see them offered as single malts in their own right. But they occasionally surface as independent bottlings, offering genuinely rare tastes of whisky that’s otherwise lost in a blend. Spotting these scarcities on a whisky list is a fun exercise, especially if you discover a penchant for a certain distillery. (I’m partial to Glenburgie, Glenlossie, and especially the long-lost Imperial.) And ordering one has the added benefit of making you look like a total pro, even if you’re still finding your feet in the Scotch waters.

Glen Scotia 10-Year-Old

Springbank has long been the go-to brand repping Campbeltown, which was once the most important whisky locale in Scotland. But Springbank has gotten expensive, and anyway, it’s not the only game in town. Glen Scotia, too, makes rich, flavorful single malt that boasts mouthwatering salinity and an oily, viscous texture. Drinking it is a full-body experience—and how many Scotches can make that claim? Starting with the 10-year-old gives a solid grounding in the house style, but Glen Scotia especially shines in the limited editions released annually for the local whisky festival, which usually feature highly active finishing casks. Along with Kilchoman, this is one of the Scotches I consider a solid collectible option.

Clynelish 14-Year-Old

Diehard Compass Box fans might recognize the name as the base for many of the blender’s expressions, but an unobtrusive label and zero marketing have kept this single malt under-the-radar for decades, even though it’s widely available and priced at what passes for bargain level these days ($60-$70 in most places). It’s a perfect example of the “waxy” note that is sometimes found in Scotch, and it’s also just extremely tasty, outperforming scores of better-known names in blind tastings. The original Clynelish became Brora Distillery in the 1960s, which lends this bottling some mystique, even though similarities between the two whiskies stop there. An insider's dram that remains delightfully accessible.

Ardbeg Uigeadail

In 2003, Ardbeg was still getting back up to speed after years of little to no production. Aged stock—stuff that was a decade or more—was either very old or nearly non-existent. But Ardbeg fans were clamoring, so master distiller Bill Lumsden put together this non-age statement (NAS) single malt, aged in bourbon and sherry casks and bottled at a hefty 54.2% ABV. It preceded the wave of NAS whiskies that swept through Scotch brands in the 2010s, and set a standard that few ended up matching. As higher-profile, peatier whiskies appeared in the successive decades, Uigeadail kept on keeping on, offering a sturdy, sherry-rich profile that’s practically engineered to satisfy. It has become such a standby that remembering it’s barely 20 years old—and its sibling, the 57.1% ABV Corryvreckan, even younger—comes as a bit of shock. But it has assumed classic status, worthy of the repertoire of every Scotch drinker.

GlenDronach 15-Year-Old

Many first-time Scotch drinkers find heavily sherried whisky easy to embrace, thanks to accessible flavors that can range from chocolate-covered raisins and hazelnuts to raspberry jam and coffee. Among the distilleries known for sherry bombs, GlenDronach has risen to prominence in the past decade, and its 15-year-old expression hits a sweet spot of maturity and price. Aged only in sherry casks—Pedro Ximénez and oloroso—the whisky is rich and sweet, with balancing spice and leathery oak. A crowd pleaser that exceeds Macallan of the same age, and a case study in the  quiet quality that exists throughout the Scotch world if you’re willing to look for it.

Ardnamurchan AD

In a strong field of “new school” distilleries—it opened in 2014—Ardnamurchan stands out as one of the best. The whisky is made to traditional form on a wild, isolated peninsula off the West Coast, with all its casks maturing on site in dunnage-style warehouses. The distillery produces both peated and unpeated spirit, which it blends in different proportions for its various releases, and has a widely varied cask program; all of this allows for maximum flexibility in flavor creation. Ardnamurchan’s first 10-year-old single malt came of age in 2024, but even if you happen upon a younger bottling (details on the label), the whisky should taste mature beyond its years, and utterly satisfying.

Aged Single Grain Whisky

Most drinkers aren’t likely to drop $100 on a pour of 30-year-old single malt right off the bat, let alone the many thousands of dollars it would cost to acquire a full bottle. But very old single grain Scotch? That’s well within reach, and highly recommended, not just as a good deal but because it offers an unparalleled window into the effects of time. The simplicity of grain whisky’s structure makes it an excellent canvas for long aging in second- or third-use barrels, bringing forth notes that are easy to identify as coming from the passage of time, rather than an active cask or particularly characterful spirit. Most aged single grains come from independent bottlers, but the quality tends to be consistently high—and the prices consistently reasonable—so taking a gamble on a bottle isn’t all that risky.