In less than two weeks Penn State football will be back at Beaver Stadium and many of us will enjoy a day of tailgating before the 3:30 p.m. kickoff against Nevada. It will have been eight months and nine days since we were in the stadium for that frigid victory over SMU just days before Christmas last year, and as I write this, the long-range weather forecast for the Saturday, Aug. 30 game calls for partly cloudy skies with light and variable winds, and a high temperature of 80 degrees.
In other words, the polar opposite of the last PSU game we watched here in Happy Valley. Thankfully.
With a 3:30 kickoff we’ll have plenty of time to imbibe in our favorite food and drink as we tailgate under those partly cloudy skies. And much of that drink will be various forms of alcohol, with beer likely leading the way. (Note: please drink responsibly!).
That is likely because according to Gallup’s annual Consumption Habits survey, which was conducted July 7-21, 2025, 38% of Americans who drink alcoholic beverages say beer is their #1 choice, beating out the 30% who say liquor, and the 29% who choose wine.
However, beer used to be an even more heavily favored beverage according to Gallup’s surveys. In 1994 47% preferred beer, compared to 29% for wine (exactly the same as today) and only 18% for liquor. While beer preference has dropped in those three decades from 47% to 38%, liquor preference has climbed from 18% to 30% — and now surpasses wine.
This trend of an increasing preference for liquor is supported by my own drinking habits. As I have noted in my columns over the last few years, the alcohol I prefer to drink is scotch. A fondness which started back in the mid-’90s.
As I grew into adulthood in my 30s I found my tastes shifting a bit – and my waistline getting a tad larger – and like many true blue Americans I started into a good old “bourbon phase.” Which was supported by a number of distilleries in the Appalachians that produced a variety of different whiskies, especially single-barrel bourbons. Some of which, like Booker’s, that had rather high alcohol contents – 120 proof or more.
It was a nice enjoyable phase for a few years, but over time I found more friends and co-workers having “a scotch” on those occasions when we would go out, and I became interested.
For the uninitiated, scotch is a distilled spirit made in Scotland from three ingredients: grain, water and yeast. And, if you are going to call it “whisky,” be sure to note that it is “whisky” without an “e.” As opposed to “whiskey” with an “e” – how it is generally spelled when referring to bourbon whiskey, Canadian whiskey or Irish whiskey.
My initial introduction to scotch was through Dewar’s White Label, which is a blended scotch that is present on the shelves of just about every bar in America. It’s oftentimes the “well” scotch – the most affordable and readily available scotch – assuming the bar isn’t stocking Johnnie Walker instead.
After a short time of acclimating my taste buds to blended scotch, I had the opportunity to attend a single-malt scotch tasting at the British Consulate General in New York City. Notwithstanding that it can be difficult to “taste” a wide variety of scotch at a single sitting without spitting most of it out, this was a wonderful introduction into the world of scotch.
There were a number of different distilleries present, all with very knowledgeable employees who could provide glorious details on the making of their whisky. Scotch whisky that many of their companies had been distilling for well over 100 years.
The most important detail about scotch, and a source of national pride, is that according to UK law, scotch “must be distilled and matured in Scotland in oak casks for at least three years and bottled at a minimum alcoholic strength of 40% alcohol by volume.” If you are drinking scotch, it started its existence in Scotland.
But scotch is more than just a source of Scottish pride, it’s an economic engine. According to the Scotch Whisky Association, scotch is the UK’s biggest food and drink export, totaling $7.31 billion in 2024. The industry supports 66,000 jobs in the UK, and there were 2.7 million visits to scotch distilleries last year. And the United States is the largest importer of scotch (by value) in the world, bringing in $1.3 billion worth of scotch last year.
Which brings us to the conundrum that every scotch drinker reaches once they move from blended scotches to single-malt scotches. And that is: do you prefer your scotch peated or unpeated?
Peat is partially decomposed plant matter, typically found in bogs and wetlands that are abundant in parts of Scotland, and is burned in the scotch distilling process to dry the malted barley. This infuses the grain with smoky, earthy, peaty flavors.
Scotland is home to over 150 malt and grain distilleries in a country the size of South Carolina, making it the greatest concentration of whisky production in the world. Some of these distilleries use peat to dry out their grain and some don’t. And some do it both ways.
Whichever way a distillery does it, the end results from using peat or not are vastly different. As a person who prefers his scotch without partially decomposed plant matter, I can tell a peated scotch when it gets within inches of my nose. Which is why I seek out distilleries who are clear on their unpeated desires.
My wife, however, differs on this subject.
We have been together for more than 40 years, and although she has tried a number of my scotches over that time, she has hated all of them. Until last year. On my birthday in October we were at the Bunnahabhain distillery on Islay in Scotland doing a tour and tasting. Bunnahabhain traditionally makes unpeated scotches, but because they are on Islay, the capital of peated scotches, they do concoct a few peated versions.
After tasting three different unpeated scotches, we were given an option to try a limited-release peated barrel they had recently bottled. I took one sniff and drank it quickly. My wife, on the other hand, was amazed. Like Mikey in the Life cereal commercial, she liked it! We bought her a bottle and she has been a peated scotch connoisseur ever since.
Which is why on Aug. 30 in the tailgating lots at Beaver Stadium, you will find us with a scotch in our hands, and not a beer. Sláinte!
