About 15 years ago a buddy of mine and I joined the Scotch Club of Vancouver. We would meet every month at the Arts Club on Granville Island and get tastings from the liquor reps that would come through town. Sometimes, we'd get to taste half a dozen or more single malts and blends for our $10 dollar club fee. We learned a lot but there is a whole lot of useless snobbery about scotch (as there is with wine). We had a whole lot of so-called Vancouver scotch experts doing blind taste tests and almost all of us failed miserably.
Single malts are just a different drink than blends and one's individual taste is more important than anything the "experts" tell you. I now buy my scotch mostly on price because I know there is little difference (especially the blends or if you throw ice or water in a single malt).
Having said that, J & B, Dewar's and Ballantyne's are perfectly acceptable blends and reasonably priced.
To appreciate a single malt, I think there is some minor benefit for going neat. One tip a liquor rep from Scotland taught us was to find the nostril that is working the best (apparently your nostrils rotate clarity every hour or so) and plug the bad one for a good sniff from the good one with your nose deep in the glass. Kind of squishing your first sip in your mouth releases even more aroma. The single malts benefit is largely in the realm of the "bouquet", so the strong ones like Laphroig are a real kick but once again, I get enough out of a reasonably priced one like Dalmore or, whenever I can find it, Mortlach (used to be almost the same price as a blend but seems to have disappeared).
