I'll have the CoorsBudweiserGuinessMillerSamAdamsPabst, please. On tap.

This is going to be a singularly unimportant rant, as rants go, but then again, it's probably more socially significant than the previous entry on pet peeves, if only by the narrowest of margins.

The two ostentatious vices I indulge in, albeit rarely (because in addition to being ostentatious vices, they're also expensive ones), are smoking good cigars, and drinking good single malt Scotch. The latter, being the rarer for me, is tonight's topic of bewilderment.

For those unfamiliar with the world of Scotch, there are two types of Scotch drinkers: The single malt people and the blended people. The single malt drinkers view the blended drinkers much as wine connoisseurs view people who prefer their wine with screw-off tops (and colorful names like Boone's Farm and MD20/20), and blended scotch drinkers view single malt patrons as pretentious snobs. Being periodically pretentious and often snobbish by nature, I am, and always have been, a single malt Scotch drinker. However, in this case, I just don't understand the alternative.

Blended Scotches (including some very famous and well-regarded brand names like Chivas Regal and Dewars) are literally amalgams of dozens, if not hundreds, of single malt Scotches that have been pawned off by single malt distillers, mostly their leftovers. Much of the distinction of any specific Scotch lies in two root ingredients - the local water, and the local peat. Like it's hoidy-toidy cousin the wine-grape, the local region produces very distinct tastes, based on the area within Scotland that it comes from. Saltiness, smokiness, peat content, and other criteria, combine to give every single malt locale a distinct flavor and a passionate following. Some are Highland fans, some Islay, and others places in between, mostly along the Spey river in Scotland.

Now I get the fact that some people don't like Scotch. It's an acquired taste, to be sure. And even within the single malt community, you'll have arguments over the 'best' place to distill Scotch. Much like wine afficionados fighting over regions of France, or Spain, or Italy, or Australia, or California or New York wines. And like brewers that tout their beer based on the local waters they brew with (think Coors in America, or Guiness in Ireland).

What perplexes me is the people that LIKE a blended Scotch. If you like a good Chardonnay, for instance, would you order a glass of wine that you knew was made from dozens, if not hundreds, of different kinds of wine grapes? That could have come from France, or California, or Kansas, for that matter? That they could be from any type of wine grapes, sweet or dry? Methinks not. You've probably developed a taste, or at least a mood for, a certain kind of wine, and more often than not, probably a favorite place that it comes from.

Bourbon, that most American of hard liquor, has evolved into such a specific entity that by U.S. trade law, it must be at least 51% corn (typically closer to 70%), with the rest of the recipe containing wheat and/or rye, and malted barley. No other dry ingredients are allowed. A concurrent resolution of the U.S. Congress restricted Bourbon to U.S. production (in 1964). No hybrid blends here either.

I'd never tell a Highland-type Scotch drinker that his lighter Scotch was inferior to the smokier tastes of my beloved Islay (Lagavulin, Laphroaig) or Spey malts (Macallan), because at least that's a specific choice made. A blended Scotch is much more akin to the 'garbage can punch' stuff we had in college.... You know, where everyone brings a bottle of something and pours it into the punchbowl. You'll get drunk either way, but with a single malt, you can at least enjoy the taste.