Tried some scotch once. It tasted like burnt wood. I’m told it was a very good scotch and that is what it was SUPPOSED to taste like.
Some varieties of scotch are very smokey, true. It’s an acquired taste. The good stuff is invariably single malt with only one exception that I can think of, and that would be Pinch, or The Dimple as it’s known in some countries. A good starter single malt that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg would be 12 year old Glenlivet. Smoke is not so pronounced.
My father used to say that until you got used to it, it tasted like water leftover after a fire.
He was used to it.
Scotch distillers use old bourbon barrels. The reason being Scotch needs all the help it can get and even then it’s not enough.
To me most good single malts have a smokey coffee or chocolate taste...