Like with many things there’s a degree of default-ism with American goods, and a lot of cocktail recipes call specifically for certain whiskeys. Even more generally than specific brands - bourbon, which is PDO. Could you use other whiskeys (if you can even find a non-bourbon corn whiskey), sure - but are you “following the recipe”? Is this bad because the recipe is bad, or because you picked a bad sub?
Like with many things there’s a degree of default-ism with American goods, and a lot of cocktail recipes call specifically for certain whiskeys. Even more generally than specific brands - bourbon, which is PDO. Could you use other whiskeys (if you can even find a non-bourbon corn whiskey), sure - but are you “following the recipe”? Is this bad because the recipe is bad, or because you picked a bad sub?