Last updated 9/16/97
Single malt Scotch whiskies are inherently intense, being as they are distilled. Therefore, my preference is to sip the most intense among them. My favorites: Lagavullin, Talisker, Laphraoig. The thread? Smoke, peat, iodine.
If you are interested, you can read Distilled Rauchbier? For Peat's Sake, a little article on Scotch and a tour of a couple of distilleries we took during a trip to Scotland in 1993. I wrote it for a local homebrew club, seeing as how the ingredients and some of the process of creating Scotch are essentially similar to those of beer.
I don't know as much as I would like to about single malts, so I will just leave you with a few very important leads to follow :