I started drinking bourbon because for the money, some of it was phenomenal whisky. In particular the higher end Jim Beam products were on par with extremely expensive scotch, imo, particularly Booker's.

I remember thinking that a $65 bottle of Booker's could easily go head to head with some of the $200 Scotch bottles I'd sip from.

However, now Bookers is over $100 and hard to find, Knob Creek doesn't have an age statement anymore, and generally the quality has gone down.