Thread: A splash of water in your single malt ?

I tend to prefer my whiskey neat, but part of the fun of a cask strength is dashing in varying amounts of water to see what flavors bloom.

I did have a scotch on the rocks once that was very agreeable, in the brandy library in NYC. They use a 2" diameter ice ball instead of bunch of smaller cubes and the result was a less diluted but still chilled drink.

On another occasion, a friend of mine had a set of chillers made by piet hein. They are about the size of an ice cube but made of stainless steel with a liquid core. Once frozen, the chill a drink nicely without diluting it.


-Rob

I'm thinking about picking up a set of these:
Amazon.com: Tovolo Perfect Cube Silicone Ice Cube Trays, Set of 2, Dark Blue: Kitchen & Dining

Let me know if anybody finds anything that makes a bigger cube.

Not cubes, but along the lines of what I was talking about:

MoMA Store - Spherical Ice Tray Set

-Rob

Originally Posted by sicboater

Not cubes, but along the lines of what I was talking about:

MoMA Store - Spherical Ice Tray Set

-Rob

Yeah... I think that's cool but for home use they are a little inefficient. Very cool though.

There's basically 4 ways to drink whisky:
1) With ice
2) With water
3) Without water
4) Like water

Most things tend to be preserved in ice why not bad taste?

Originally Posted by niftyshaving

A splash of good spring water is good.

A splash of bad tap water is ghastly.

Ice and the making of ice tends to
vastly improve the taste of water.
So unless you know the water is good
out of the tap go for a bit of ice.

i have settled with my core collection of whiskeys (Jura being my favorite) if im tasting a whiskey for the first time ill add a splash to taste it. but for what i know well (oh so well) its hard and fast all the way! wouldent do it with brandys vodkas or rums tho. definatly for absinthe and i dont bother for blends and bourbons cause they dont have much complexity (ok there are some good blends actualy i take that back, but im sorry about your american whiskey it taste like vodka with niqotine swirled in to me!).

Originally Posted by Kees

Most things tend to be preserved in ice why not bad taste?

Making ice tends to purify the water as it crystallizes.

The first stuff that goes out are the gases. Since most water is treated with gases to kill bacteria this can help.

Some old timers would put a keg of hard cider out on the porch in the winter. Some of the water would freeze out and could be strained out of the slush. The remaining liquid could have MUCH more alcohol than normal hard cider. Freezing can separate out components in water.

Years ago I worked in an ice house and the water we used was spring water and the blocks of ice used for making cubes and crushed ice had a bubbler in it. We suctioned the last bit of unfrozen water out from a central core left by the bubbler. A lot of minerals and stuff did concentrate in that last quart of water and the block of ice was almost clear.

Ice made in a tray at home only gets rid of some of the volatiles
as it freezes. While better it is not an ideal way to make "good" ice.

Many bars make ice in a machine that has a flat cold plate and
water constantly flows over the plate. When it is thick enough the plate is warmed and the ice slides over heated cutting wires. Other places
make ice after filtering the ice with a good "industrial" filter.
These places may also be the ones that have fountain drinks like 7up, and cola.
It turns out that bad water makes bad soft drinks and bad coffee and Pepsi/Coke folk require a good filter.

Distilled water is "flat". Water that is slightly hard with carbonates
can be sweet. Sulfates and other sulphur compounds make for stinky water. Some iron minerals are a good thing for tea. Mineral water (with 800+ppm total dissolved solids) tends to have too much much for my taste but some are excellent with pasta/ red sauce. If I had my druthers 100-200ppm mostly carbonate is my choice for drinking water.

Someone mentioned the Britta filter. For an inexpensive filter they work quite well depending on the stuff in your water.

Good drinking water may not be good for doing laundry or make a good shaving lather.

Good water for laundry may not taste good.

Reverse osmosis filters give flat tasting water in my opinion, but are the best choice for some city water.

My Dad is a drinker of strictly Scotch And His favorite too Is Isle of Jura,but years a go he got a set of 2 highball glasses with 4 square granite cubes 2 for each glass.When the cubes are placed in the freezer they get as cold as ice does but will not retain any odor or flavor.Since scotch's flavor depends on of course the maker,aging process etc.It just as much depends on the water used in the process which is different in every scotch,so to add chlorinated,flourided infused tap water,or even worse concentrate it in ice seems to me to just ruin an expensive drink of scotch.

Not being a Scotch drinker myself, I am finding this thread rather fascinating. So I head down to the local liquor store and picked up a bottle of "The Glenlivet" single malt. I have a neat, square, whiskey glass - exactally like the one Harrison Ford used in Blade Runner. 'bout 5 ice cubes and 2-1/2 oz of Glenlivet (that's my shot size), and a splash of water , more or less. and settled in - OMG, that was really great! Now I can see what you Scotch drinker's are talkin' about.

I gotta admit, "that''s pretty good!

Steve