My recommendation would go on a bottle of Port Charlotte Ar Duthchas PC8, you'd have to up your budget to around £60 (unless you can find a good deal somewhere) but it's one of the best Islay single malts I've tried. As mentioned above, Lagavulin 16yr is a good choice. Usually sets you back around £46 for a standard bottle. Balblair 1989 is quite a nice one by my tastes, but I've found it to be one of those love it or hate it drinks. You'd probably only want to try find a small bottle of this one to start with to make sure you like it. Most of my friends aren't a fan, which is good for me as it means I get to drink more of it myself.
I had a bottle of 18yo Glenlivet some time back which was delicious, then my brother bought me a bottle of Highland Park which isn't my cup of scotch at all, far too peaty for me I think. Now I have a very nice bottle of Talisker Distiller's Edition, which while very nice part of me still prefers the taste of that Glenlivet. I guess that just shows you there is a lot of variation between whiskies. I was in Wales last weekend and visited the only Welsh distillery, Penderyn. We sampled a few of their spirits, including two different types of whisky, the Sherrywood was particularly nice, but the highlight was probably their Gin which is made with 10 different botanicals, or maybe their Cream Liquer which knocked the socks off of Baileys!
Everyone loves whiskey! (don't they?) Not too peaty, some sweetness on the finish? Bowmore Tempest £42 Best whiskey I've tried in a long time (apart from the stuff SWMBO bought for me, honest darling) Corryvreckan £62 of awesomeness. Really Im a massive Ardberg fanboy, but even taking that into account this is something special. Others have pointed you towards Talisker - I quite like their 10yo £40 100cc Who the hell buys whiskey from Japan??? Turns out that they are actually pretty awesome, and you can pick up a great bottle within budget Suntory Yamazaki 12yo £41
Personally, I like Glenkinchie, but I'm not exactly an experienced/hardened whisky drinker. Tried it as part of a distillery tour and took a liking to it.
Glenmorangie is lovely, also the balvenie (does anyone know why whiskeys are often referred to as 'the' something?
If you're not too knowledgeable, it could be that the finer notes of the more expensive wiskeys (€30+) are not as readily recognized as opposed to those in somewhat cheaper wiskeys (€20 - €30). Anything cheaper is cocktail-grade stuff (exept for the €14 Famous Grouse, a superior bang for buck wiskey in my opinion, also a very nice site). I kinda would propose you to split the budget and buy two bottles, of different 'kinds' of wiskey. So you can drink the one you like. Glennfiddich (stronger taste) and Glen Deveron (smooth, with superior aftertaste) would be my recommendations (readily available and they add up to about €55) If you still want to go for 1 bottle, I'd go with the Laphroaig like previously mentioned. ps: I have no idea about prices in the UK, so I put them in euro's to give you an idea of general price direction.
My recommendation also goes to the Famous Grouse- great bang for the buck whisky. If you snatch an offer while it's on, you can get a 1 litre bottle for about £12. I've also had a very good experience with the Snow Grouse (vanilla taste) and Black Grouse (peaty taste) if you want to give them a go. Bottle of snow is about £13 and black is £19. They have a very nice site and if you want you could get the triple 50ml pack that has normal, Snow and Black for a tenner. Maybe the 12- year malt is worth considering too?
Islay malts are very much an aquired taste - for sure if you don't like the taste of liniment I'd suggest you steer clear. Having said that, I know several non-whisky drinkers that fell in love with Lagavullin. Laphroaig destroys my throat. For something a little interesting, take a look at Old Pulteney, has a salty aftertaste. Macallan might appear a bit high-street, but it is there for a reason. I prefer the sherry finish, and the 25 yr old anniversary release is to die for (but rarer than rocking horse poo and costs a bomb these days, well out of budget), I have the non-anniversary 25 which is nice but not quite up there. Blackford distillery reopened a while back, Tullibardine 12yo bourbon finish is rather nice, sort of a gluey texture to it that hangs around for a while. I tend to prefer the speyside/highland malts though, so my opinion is slightly biased. But you can't go wrong with the macallan sherry finish which also has a slight peaty edge to it, or glenlivet (the french oak 18yr old is really quite nice) Bushmills is also rather nice (understatement, tbh) Grouse...the original blend includes some macallan, so a familiar taste for me, but it has too much grain spirit, really hammers the body in the morning! I've had a few bottles of Glenmorangie, really wanted to like it as it's a proper highland malt (Connor MacLeod drank it!), but there's a little too much of the earth in the aftertaste for me.
