This is one of those cases where I'm thankful that I'm also really into making cocktails, because unless the whisky is absolutely disgusting, it's going to work in a cocktail, and at the very least, it's a challenge for me to make it work.
Or make whisky cake. Dried fruit and peel are soaked in whisky for a week, baked into a fairly typical fruit cake, drizzled with more whisky, wrapped, and left to steep for a couple of weeks. Recommended.
I've told folks that want to buy me something to go into a specialty shop and ask for recommendations there. If they want to excite the folks working there, taking a photo of my collection will let them know my taste, and they'll get excited about doing recommendations (since they'll almost certainly also be whisky nerds).
This is probably the best bet for folks really determined to get something for $thing-nerds.