Lars: Thanks for the recs. I like Ardbeg and I like cask strength, but I haven't had those. I'll keep an eye out for them.
LOTD: Hmmm, sure seems like they are both regular bushmill's. I think maybe the color of the bigger bottle is just f'ed up. In any case, the lighter one is what regular bushmill's looks like for real. Also, no idea wtf with the ratings. Maybe the big bottle is some obscure variation, but all the different varieties I'm aware of have completely different names and labels.
At tastings I do with friends we usually just have stuff like crackers / cheese / fruit / etc., random finger food and then maybe get some pizza once we get drunk. Everything goes w/ whiskey, though! This link says to avoid cheese, whatever :
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1849928