We love booze, but we're not very smart … 

Most of the time, when people make us drink anything that resembles whiskey, it goes like this:

But fancy people who like this kind of crap will argue relentlessly about the nuisances of rye versus bourbon, what mash bills are, and all that kind of whiskey nonsense — when in reality, you should taste booze and whiskey flavors … that's about it. And if you think there's more there, you're probably a liar. 

If you need a primer as to what the hell the difference is supposed to be, here ya go:

There must be a pretty huge differenc in flavors, right? But as per a study by Drexel University, the average person won't even notice. 

[Jacob Lahne, PhD, an assistant professor in the Center for Hospitality and Sport Management,] presented 21 study participants with trays of 10 anonymized whiskeys — five bourbons and five ryes — in random order. They were instructed to smell but not taste the alcohol. This method is in accordance with published guidelines for Scotch whisky evaluation.

The participants were then asked to organize the whiskeys into no fewer than two and no more than nine groups, by any criteria they wished.

[Lahne] found, in a blind sorting task of American ryes and bourbons, participants were more likely to group together products by brand rather than type of whiskey.

Really, the study shows that the snobbery was born a long time ago in America's history, back when there was a much larger difference in what the whiskeys were actually made from. Nowadays, it's usually whatever is cheapest. So the next time someone blathers about how they prefer bourbon over rye, you can smugly call them an asshole, because you know that booze just tastes like booze, no matter what.