Whiskey cocktails

Whiskey covers whole worlds, and a cocktail feels every one of them. Bourbon is sweet, round and vanilla-warm; rye is drier and spicier; Scotch runs from soft and honeyed to peat smoke. A Manhattan made with rye is a different drink from one made with bourbon. Both are right, and they are not the same.

For the classics, a mid-weight bourbon or a good rye is the most flexible place to start: an Old Fashioned, a Whiskey Sour, a Sazerac. Keep the smoky Islay single malt for when the smoke is the point, like the float on a Penicillin.