Tasting Order

4) 12yr Balvenie 2) 12yr Glenkinchie 1) 10yr Jura 5) 10yr Macallan (sherry oak) 3) CV Hazelburn 6) 10yr Talisker 7) 16yr Lagavulin

That would be my order I guess :)

Glengoyne 10 or Old Pulteney 12 for your Highlander

Lots of folks on other threads have suggested the light-to-heavy sort of "order", but I disagree. Here's only one reason:

We attended Jim Murray's "Best of 2012" tasting at the Victoria Whisky Festival. Jim led us through 13 whiskies in three and a half hours. He hadn't ordered the whiskies to take into account viscosity, flavor, alcohol strength, or seemingly any other "standard" flow. We didn't swallow any of the whisk(e)y, and we had only one small bottle of water to spread over the entire time. I used to think Ardbeg 10 was a whisky that couldn't be followed by any other whisky because I believed it would overpower anything after it. Not so. Jim had us taste the peat bomb as our 10th. The 12th was Jura 21 and I was still able to pick out all its light, subtle nuances.

Hope you're not planning to have your pop-in-law drink all 8 (including a Highlander) in one setting.

Many thanks for your suggestions. Will try to split the tasting in two, so that we don't have to get through all eight.