I get this question all the time and my response is typical, "What are you drinking right now? What is your choice when you go into a bar for whiskey?"
It doesn't matter if the response is Jack or Jim or scotch, an Irish whiskey, or even nothing.
I ask this to get them to establish a base of their current taste profile. The question is for them, not me.
Back the Beginning -
For a lot of us, Jack and Coke was our first. I went with it as a kid, starting with Jack Daniels on the rocks as an 18-year-old. On my 21st birthday, I received five, 5ths of JD - I established myself as a Jack Daniels dude early on.
I went through the usual whiskey adventures; Jack and Coke, or rocks or Yukon Jack. I settled on what I called a "Mountain Jack", Moutain Dew, and Jack Daniels. It would be another 40 years or so until I discovered the real connection between Mountain Dew and whiskey.
Irony.
Back to the Future -