Mesquite and hickory wood smokes are popular across the United States but I find them too bitter tasting. Many places up here in the Pacific Northwest over smoke the food almost acrid creosote smell. I want to be just a little more subtle.
I like all the fruit woods, apple in particular for the aroma it lends to just about any meaty thing I've done in the BBQ.
I have a Breville smoke pistol to use in my kitchen oven. Works OK but weak.
Alder has been the smoke wood of choice for salmon for the past few thousands of years. Good on clams and oysters, too. Just so happened to have a serious feed of smoked mussels last night!
The entire west coast got killed off at the end of last June. We had a heat dome with temps in the mid-40's. It just so happened that the very worst day, the very hottest afternoon, coincided with a low tide. All the intertidal mussels with their blue-black shells got cooked to death. Thousands of square km of intertidal zone rock. Now we are seing the backlash without the water filtering function that they performed. All dead and rotting, instead.