Best single-malt Scotch...

I work in the high end of the booze biz & get good opportunities to purchase rare malts. Springbank is the distillery that I would miss the most were it to go silent. My all time fave Highland malt is the discontinued (since 1995)Balvenie Classic (the one that came in what look like an E&J brandy bottle). For pure in-your-face sauvage Islay charachter, you can't beat the younger Murray McDavid bottlings of Laphroaig. These bottlings, sometimes labeled as "Leapfrog", make the distillery bottlings seem tame & muted in comparison. The lack of chill filtration is the key to the superior quality of these Murray McDavid bottlings.

BTW, if any audiogonsters out there were to find a dusty bottle of the Balvenie Classic sitting forlornly on some retailer's shelf (I found one last year), I'd trade a fairly spectacuilar bottle of wine from my cellar for it.

What are we looking at for a price range on this? Love scotch and had the oppurtunity to taste a many in Scotland but stick to GlenLivet cause I am uneducated in this catagory. Where can i find it?

Highland malts are (generally) full bodied, with a sweet finish & little of the pronounced iodine, peat & salt air character found in Islay malts. Glenlivet is an excellent place to start. Go to a bar or restauarant that has a good selection of drams. Try four or five different ones before you buy a bottle. If you like the Glenlivet, try the Macallan 18 (currently around $80, but worth it), Glenfarclas, any of the offerings from Balvenie, or, for a killer bargain, get a bottle of the Dalmore 12 (less than $25).

Macallan 18

For me, Lagavulin, Taliser, Aberlour. Got a bottle of Macallan 18 yr as a gift. It's very smooth, sherried, but I like more heft to my single malts!