What is a good bourbon for beginners

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?"

this doesn't mean you shouldn't seek out folks who have been on the path before you; Those who have developed a palate like you're attempting to do.

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 -

American Oak, The British Navy And Scotch

To be aged in bourbon barrels is the ‘hot’ thing in libation. From tequila to Worcestershire sauce, the finishing qualities of used bourbon barrels permeate a plethora of consumables.

But why and how did this ‘fad’ take off?

First, aging in used barrels is not new. Indeed, the practice of reusing casks goes back millennia.

Contemporary usage owes to these basic influences:

• The British Navy
• The Frugal Scotts
• Taste
• The British Navy