In Northern Irish whiskey, the single malt wins

Northern Ireland on this shelf is more or less Bushmills country, the old County Antrim distillery that is one of the oldest names in Irish whiskey, alongside a revived Belfast blend. Three bottles here, a middle price of $74, nothing tagged above $81. Two of the three ask more than their crowd of nearest neighbours. The exception, and the pick, is the one most drinkers would assume costs the most.

That is the Bushmills 10 Year Old single malt at $79, sitting about 4% under the roughly $82 that its ten nearest run. The margin is slim, but it is the only bottle on this shelf priced below its own company rather than above it, and it is a single malt doing it. Triple-distilled in the Irish way, it drinks soft and clean: honey and a creamy weight, ripe peach, a lift of citrus peel, a little pepper right at the end. This is the style Ireland is loved for, light and easy without being thin, and for once the tag is not asking a premium for it.

Below it on price sits Black Bush at $66, about 10% over its roughly $60 crowd. This is the sherried Bushmills, a heavy dose of malt in the blend and matured with a good lean on sherry casks, so it drinks richer and darker than the 10: sherry and cinnamon, baked apple, a cocoa note and a raisiny sweetness through the middle. It is the cheapest of the three and the most characterful for the money, though it does carry a small premium over the blends nearest it where the single malt does not. Easy to forgive at sixty-six dollars.

The widest gap belongs to the dearest bottle. McConnell's Belfast is $83, about 46% over a roughly $57 band, a revived Belfast blend that leans light and approachable: citrus and orchard fruit, a honeyed, butterscotch softness, a touch of spice to finish. There is nothing wrong with the glass. The problem is the arithmetic. You are paying nearly half again over the crowd of blends it sits among, and paying it to land four dollars short of a triple-distilled single malt with a far longer history behind it. On character it is pleasant. On value it is the hardest of the three to argue for.

It helps to know what the Irish style is reaching for. Irish whiskey built its name on being gentle, the triple-distilled smoothness that made it the easy alternative to a smoky Scotch or a sweet bourbon, and all three of these bottles sit squarely in that tradition. The Bushmills 10 is the purest statement of it, a single malt with nothing to hide behind, which is part of why its fair price against the malt crowd counts for more than the blends' small premiums do. A blend can lean on cheaper grain whiskey to hold its price down. A single malt cannot, so when one lands under its peers it is doing so on the quality of the malt alone, and that is the harder trick to pull off.

There is one thing the Black Bush has going for it that the figures do not show. It is the bottle here most likely to win over someone who thinks they do not like whiskey, all that sherried sweetness and soft baking spice doing the quiet persuading, and at its price it is a cheap way to run the experiment. The Bushmills 10 is the better glass and the smarter buy for yourself. But if you are pouring for a table rather than for your own quiet evening, the Black Bush earns its corner of the shelf.

What makes this shelf interesting is that the value runs backwards. The normal order has a single malt command a premium over a blend, and the cheapest bottle look like the bargain. Here the single malt is the only thing priced under its crowd, the dearest bottle carries the biggest premium, and the cheap blend sits modestly over its neighbours. The model reads the Bushmills 10 as fairly placed against other malts, while it reads both blends as a little dear against the cheaper blends around them. So the usual instinct, reach for the blend to save money, is the one that costs you most relative to what you get.

So how to buy well off a small Irish shelf. The Bushmills 10 at $79 is the clear pick, a genuine triple-distilled single malt priced in line with its company and about as gentle an introduction to Irish malt as there is. If you would rather have sherry and spice and spend less, Black Bush at $66 is the richer, cheaper call and the small premium is easy to live with. I would hesitate over the McConnell's at $83; it is a likeable light blend, but it asks the most over its crowd of anything here, and for four dollars more the 10 gives you a great deal more whiskey. Buy the malt.