Gary, if we view the question in this light I would recommend Jim Beam Black Label.

But your comments about Powers (and this applies to Jameson to a degree) are suggestive to me of a link to a certain type of straight whiskey. The menthol hit of Irish pot still is evident strongly in Powers and to a degree in Jameson's regular label (not to mention the 12 year old and other older extensions). This finds an analogue, to my mind, in those straight whiskeys that offer a menthol flavour. Heaven Hill's do, e.g., as Bamber noted for EWSB '94. So does Bulleit and Four Roses Single Barrel. Bulleit in particular would please, I think, someone who likes the tang of Irish pot still. What accounts for that minty/menthol taste in both whiskies? I think it is the rye in the bourbons and the unmalted barley in the Irish pot still. I cannot recall now where I read this, but a distiller wrote that unmalted barley provides flavours similar to that of rye whiskey. This is, I think, that wintergreen taste Chuck noted in his book in older whiskies (reflecting a higher rye mashbill than is generally used today) - this provides a link in my view to Ireland (whence after all many 1700's-era American distillers came). Hirsch 16 year old (i.e., 1974 Michter's whose origins stretch to Revolutionary times) has a hint of that menthol too.

Gary
Not trying to bring this back from the dead, but figured I'd give an update... my friend's wife picked him up a bottle of Bulleit a couple weeks ago, and he took to it like a fish to water. He still mixed it with ginger ale at first, but he just told me today that he did all his drinking over the weekend neat. He also said that his 2nd bottle of Elijah Craig 12 is growing on him, and he really likes it.

Wanna hear something amusing, though? The reason he stuck with bourbon instead of continuing to drink Powers is because he likes the color better... now he's hooked on the taste too!