For me, a great whisky is "spirit led" i.e. the flavour is dominated by the flavours present in the spirit itself before maturation. It's difficult and expensi

For me, a great whisky is "spirit led" i.e. the flavour is dominated by the flavours present in the spirit itself before maturation. It's difficult and expensive to make a really good "spirit led" whisky so many distilleries use casks as a way to imbue more flavours. Of course, a good cask helps (and you can't have whisky without casks) but beware of marketing departments trying to bamboozle you with fancy barrels. The real art is in the distillation itself.