I'm a fellow label reader, I'm vegetarian, so I'm an expert at scouring lists of ingrediants for gelatin or cochineal, or their E number equivalents. It's pretty rare I notice anything too scary on there though, but that might be becuase I'm not much of a junk food eater anyway. I'm pretty good at knowing what things are though, becuase I google them to make sure they're okay for me to eat, so some of those scary sounding chemical names translate pretty easily into something totally normal that they have just given a long name for some reason.

I don't know if there are specific rules for whiskey, but it wouldn't surprise me, some people are super fussy about it. What I do know though is that if you want something that isn't incredibly harsh, you have to go for the well aged stuff, and that's expensive. I bought my dad a bottle of 35 year old Irish whiskey last year and he gave me some. it was really nice. Something like Teachers or Jameson I'll drink, but probably not enjoy anywhere near as much. The first time you try it can be a horrible shock!.