Why I Drink

The best advice seems to be that women do best with one drink a day and men with two. The difference is something to do with hormones, or size, or both.

When I learned that alcohol was good for me, I set out to find the best stuff. Since I dislike beer and don't like wine well enough to finish a bottle before it turns to vinegar, I settled on my favorite hard liquor, Scotch.

Not just any Scotch. The best Scotch is single malt Scotch whisky. Since I drink so little, I want to drink the best. But which of these is the very best?

To find out I started with Michael Jackson's Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch. This book by a great connoisseur reviewed more than 800 single malts.

Dutifully, I bought and drank at least one bottle of every single malt that he gives top scores to. It was a lot of work but worth it.

For me a clear favorite emerged years ago, Talisker. Its nose, Mr. Jackson wrote, is "pungent, smoke-accented, rounded." Its palate is "smoky, malty-sweet, with sourness and a very big pepperiness developing." Its finish is "very peppery, huge, long."

He called it "one of the most individualistic of single malts," which is a good fit for me. You may label me as an individualistic mountain boy, but not as an East Coast elitist.