Heh, be careful. There are no bigger connoisseurs than American whiskey/whisky drinkers. Scotch is out. Small batch bourbon and Japanese whisky are in.
For now the “proper” Japanese whisky is just too hard to find to make a dent into Bourbon, let alone Scotch. For me at least it’s possible to get my hands on a few very nice bottles, but for the price they’re just not worth it - I can get a couple of really good Scotch or Irish for the price of one bottle of, say, Hibiki Harmony. Many of the “Japanese” whiskies you’ll see that seem available and reasonably priced are simply Scotch whisky with Japanese labelling heavily implying or outright claiming it’s a product of Japan (such as Nikka From The Barrel, distilled at Ben Nevis distillery). The situation might get better - some producers have agreed to label their products more honestly - but there’s still not enough real stuff available, which is a problem when it takes years to mature and your product is red hot at the moment.
I can’t speak for small batch Bourbon, we don’t get much where I am which is a real shame.
