Bourbon

Man, I'm basic as hell. A little Elijah Craig, and I'm happy.

Edit: oh wait!

There's a gentleman I am able to get home made bourbon from on very rare occasions, at a steep price, and in small quantities. But it's one of those things you can't even just know the guy and get any, you have to be friends, or have done something really valuable to him, ideally both.

Dude won't say where he gets the barrels, and he only ever has one or two a year put back.

He started doing them back at the end of the nineties, as a personal stash on the side of his usual distilling "hobby". No two batches are the same, but they're consistently good. As good or better than anything reachable by my budget that's available legally.

His first batch was kinda mid, but he was proud as hell of it just from having made a batch that was distinctly bourbon rather than just shine of some variety.

Like I said, it isn't consistent, but that's part of why it's worth the extra hassle and cash. You don't know what you're going to get exactly, beyond it being unique and good. The last little sips I have right now, the batch was sweet, vanilla, and had hints of tobacco to it. The one I had a pint of a few years back was more or less a wild turkey clone iirc, the one I had before that was less enjoyable, it ran hot and smoky, which isn't really my thing.