Depends on the duty free retailer really. LHR tends to have a pretty decent selection of whisky but in other places the range of product is pretty poor.

Well, that's really a big part of this whole issue for me...my experience is that Duty Free Shops are just about the biggest ripoff in all of retail. They don't charge any duty on the booze...that is true. They just wildly overcharge for products that a lot of pepole don't know the price of and assume they're getting a deal. Not me.

What is your favorite scotch
 

I might be bringing back a good bottle of scotch for my boss when I visit the island of St. Martin soon, but what do others find to be their favorite scotch?

I have done that many times, never had a problem,, I bought a bottle of Vodka in Moscow, wrapped it in a towel, then wrapped it in a coat and placed it in the middle of my suitcase,, I had two transfers and it did NOT break :D nor my luggage was delayed.
This year however, I decided to buy a bottle of whisky as a Christmas present for my dad. I have to transfer in Amsterdam and I made a reservation on their Christmas shopping webpage (duty free shop),, so I'll carry it on. It was actually cheaper as it is in the local store.

As others have said, no problems with it in checked luggage. Just package it appropriately.

But the more pressing question is which whiskey you are planning to take?

LHR is basically a shopping mall pretending to be an airport with an extraordinary percentage of space devoted to all kinds of shops. There is a main duty free retailer in all terminals with a big range of standard brands at prices which are lower than standard retail in the UK but higher than easily available in California. However, Terminals 1 and 4 have outposts of a specialist whisky shop and here you should be able to obtain some interesting bottles which are less generally available. As always with airport shopping, the prices tend towards the outrageous.

on a recent trip back to the US through Canada (i took a few days layover in toronto), I bought some jwb at HKG after security, and put it into my bag as a carry-on, no issues. On my flight back to the US, i wrapped it and put it in my check-in and it was fine coming home. good luck and safe travels!

I just flew some champagne yday from duty free with no issues at all. Just bought it, an this time they sealed everything in the bag incl the box. Had no questions asked about it at all.

Duty Free.....but not cheap!
 

So here's a real example of the Duty Free scam, IMO...I checked this one out last week, specifically to post the result on this thread.

In Vienna, Austria a 750 ml bottle of 12 yr. Glenlivet ( a very basic and popular single malt) is available at several grocery stores for 19.99 euros....that's the regular price, not a sale.

Meanwhile, the exact same bottle costs 34.99 euros at the DF shop at Schwechat airport (VIE). That's 75% higher.

From a quick scan, I'd bet that every scotch carried in that airport DF shop (they have several) is at least 40% higher priced than local retailers.

Caveat Emptor.

I guess it depends on where are you flying from,, If you fly from Sweden,, it's definitely cheaper to buy it in DF shop (i'd guess the same goes for the whole Scandinavia) :D

Sometimes my families and friends in HK would like us to bring the some Canadian Maple Syrup whenever we fly back to HKG from Canada. Usually we would wrap them with those plastics with pimple pops (gosh till now I still don't know the right word for that thingy) and then place them in the middle of the clothing stack in our luggages. Has worked out fine each time and the bottles never broke nor cracked.

I personally find AKL as a wannabe shopping mall more than LHR.

Maybe so. But until you actually check prices, you might be making the precise mistake I'm talking about....that is, assuming you're getting a deal (after all, it's "Duty-Free"!) when in fact you are getting taken.

'Definitely' and 'guess' ? Without the numbers, I'm not buying it....;).

Well, I allowed myself to use the word "definitely", since I travel from Sweden very often and it was never cheaper to buy alcohol in systembolaget (which is the only store where you can buy alcohol in Sweden).
However, I actually do have numbers of my latest purchase;

Johnnie Walker Black Label (0,7L) costs 379kr (= 55$ or 41€ ) in Sweden, compared to 23€ (1L) at Amsterdam Schiphol.
Chivas Regal 595kr (= 87$ or 65€) in Sweden, compared to 42€ at DF.

An exception to that, would be wines that cost more than 1000kr in Sweden.

I "guessed" it goes the same for the whole Scandinavia, since alcohol is more expensive in Norway and only a tad cheaper in Denmark.

Okay, well done. And FYI, a very important insight is included in your answer. The only place ot buy liquor and spirits in Sweden is from the government-controlled monopoly distributor (same as Canada). Which means, almost 100% certainly, that a major chunk of the retial price is simply the Government mark-up/tax/duty. That's how government monopolies work (or more accurately....don't, IMO).

So I can see that Scandinavia is a very good candidate for DF shops with real deals. Cheers!