Best/favorite single malt

Bourbon man here. Get you some Woodford and introduce him to the good stuff.  Also, can you believe we lost to the Citadel?  I knew we were bad but not that bad. Damn!

Simple question, but a broad one at that. There are so many different regions and flavour profiles - almost akin to wine. Overlay personal taste/preference, and it's next to impossible to make a "right" recommendation. My view is as follows: If they're in to smooth, relatively easy drinking, then go with a highland or lowland. If they like smokiness and peaty flavours, go with an islay. If somewhere in between, Campbeltown malts (though only a few) will hit the mark. Personally, I'm an islay guy, with Lagavulin, Laphroaig, and Ardbed being in tight rotation. When I'm not drinking islays, I'm in the Campbeltown region, sipping Springbank. Hope that helps, but there will be no shortage of opinions on this one!

Cookbook_Chip said:

My son's soon to be in-laws are coming for Turkey. He drinks single malts. I usually do blends like Johnny Walker (blue if you got it!). What single malt should I get?

I actually prefer the JW black to the blue. And a fraction of the cost. Dimple pinch is great blended scotch. 
 The Macallan is the standard bearer. I like highlands scotch the best, but not at all exclusively. Dalmore, glen morangie, talisker, balvenie, glen fiddich, oban, on and on and on. There are thousands. 

I don't think there is a best of anything because it is subjective. 
My favorite single malts are, Dahlwinie, The McCallan and Laphrogue. I don't think you could go wrong with The McCallan. 

I'm a single malt myself, don't like anything blended as it muddles the flavors to me. The suggestions above are what I like too. Glenmorangie will be a good Speyside, MaCallan for Highland, and Lagavulin or Bowmore for Islay.

More impressive than picking a good one would be pronouncing the name correctly. 

What @bweekessaid.  I used to belong to a single malt club (a gift),  I received a different bottle each month.  All around 150.00 a bottle.  I came to love the Islay.  Unfortunately, I used to love Cutty Sark, now I can't stand the cheap stuff and can't afford the good stuff!

Glenmorangie Original is a great single malt to start with, and is a winner regardless of single malt experience.

Oh yeah, Glenlivet is nice. And Macallan was one the first single malts I had that opened my palate to how smooth scotch can be.

I used to buy The Suntori Yamazaki 18yr old for around $92/bottle. Ever since they won the award for the best single malt, it more than doubled in price. This is an excellent smooth whiskey that is very enjoyable to single malt drinkers.

Went to a Scotch tasting event a while back.  I was introduced to Highland Park.  I have tried pretty much all the brands in this thread.  My go-to Scotch is now Highland Park 18.  Simply awesome.  

I'm partial to the Islay single malts. Lagavulin Distiller's Edition is sex in a bottle. 

Balvenie 21 Port Wood is a favorite, but the price has tripled in the last 10yrs.

macallan 18 (ive been priced out of this world the last few years but this was the choice scotch for alot of fishing trips out west) and laphroaig.  picking someone a single malt that likes single malts is a shot in the dark, i hate most single malts, maybe ask the wife.  never cared for scotch until i walked into an irish bar on opening day, first customer of the morning, they gave me a bottle of paddy irish whiskey to celebrate, not scotch but it opened the door and its priced properly paddy taste more like scotch than what we consider wiskey, i would put a bottle out and see what he thinks

If you can get it, and aren't set on Scotch, you could try Crown Royal Northern Harvest.  It is a Canadian Rye and was recently rated the best whisky in the world by the Whisky Bible.

MaCallan 15 year is one of my favorites.