If you're really down and out you can cop a half gallon of Beam's eight star for 15 bucks, Milwaukee's Best Ice 6 pack 16 ounces for $4.25 tax and all. If you aren't completely broke/not an alcoholic plain old Budweiser in bottles seems to be a reasonably route to go.
Not bottom of the barrel nor is it$3-4$ a beer in the stores, basically a working mans blue collar beer. Now if you must have decent whiskey, Knob creek is absolutely wonderful, not $100 a fifth, more like $35, but worth every penny, aged 9 years, 90 proof, "small batch" etc..
The key is to find a balance between finding something that isn't prohibitively expensive but doesn't double as dig piss either.