Twenty Scotch whiskies, ranked. Not on taste — on what each one changed, survived, or still does that nobody else bothers with any more.

A town that banned alcohol for 25 years and kept its distillery anyway. A warehouse on Islay with its floor below sea level. A distillery dismantled in 1983 and rebuilt decades later. Six generations of one family still firing their stills from underneath. And a woman who raised a flag over the farm to warn the neighbours the excisemen were coming.

There's no such thing as the best whisky — only the best one for the man holding the glass. But there is such a thing as the ones that mattered.

Number one isn't the finest thing you'll ever drink. It's the one that changed what whisky is worth.

Put your own twenty in the comments.

Slàinte.

#whisky #scottish #drink