Thread: What are you drinking today?

Originally Posted by Dillinger

That tequila shit is meant to be used as a chaser

The Naked Grouse - couple of cubes of ice and a couple of fingers and you are good to go

Never more than one cube of ice.

^ why is it called on the 'rocks' then?

I got some of those granite cubes you keep in the freezer to chill your whiskey without polluting it with melted ice.

^^ A US term, isn't it?

Say no more.

Originally Posted by Mendip

I got some of those granite cubes you keep in the freezer to chill your whiskey without polluting it with melted ice

Hmm...never heard of those. Great idea.

Originally Posted by cyrille

Never more than one cube of ice.

Absolutely right. And needs to be about the size of dice. Too much and ya ruined it. Might as well add water....which btw some do. Many Scots add 1 drop of water to their dram of Scotch.

Originally Posted by Mendip

I got some of those granite cubes you keep in the freezer to chill your whiskey without polluting it with melted ice.

Originally Posted by happynz

Hmm...never heard of those. Great idea.

They do work to slightly chill the Bourbon or Whiskey however adding one small ice cube liberates the alcohol and also makes it aromatic. You can swirl it around in the glass and check out the legs to determine the level of alcohol. There is an entire science about it. Depending on the Bourbon or whiskey, I drink neat or add a cube. Also to note, the glass one uses has an impact on its taste and smell. Same goes for wine as I've been told. Maybe LuLu can offer up some wine information on his Boxed Mont Claire.

Of course if you are mixing bourbon or whiskey you can use a plastic cup with a lid and a straw.

Originally Posted by JPPR2

Absolutely right.

You're talking with a guy that drinks the bottom of the JW range 'Bender's Cask'.

Originally Posted by JPPR2

Many Scots add 1 drop of water to their dram of Scotch.

I usually do.

If drinking whisky I usually go for Glenfiddich single malt, and add a drop o' cold water to it.


About time to buy another bottle actually, haven't drank whisky, besides half a bottle of 12 year od Chivas I was given, in ages.

Originally Posted by Luigi

If drinking whisky I usually go for Glenfiddich single malt, and add a drop o' cold water to it

I like Glenfiddich 15. Honestly better than the 18 in my humble opinion. I add a drop of water much of the time as well. In Scotland, many pubs have a little spigot near the end of the bar that releases one small drop of water. Its like a permanent leaking faucet. Thought that was pretty cool.

Originally Posted by happynz

Hmm...never heard of those. Great idea.

I didn't even want this tonight , but had it just to show happynz my whisky stones. Such is my commitment to this forum.

My welcome home drink after nine weeks away!

^ good stuff, Mendip.

Must be nice to be home?

(What are whiskey stones?)

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

(What are whiskey stones?)

Whisky stones are small cubes of granite you keep in the freezer and use to cool your whisky, thus avoiding melting ice spoiling your drink.

Unless of course you get your whisky stones from the Thai auction website Chilindo. In which case they are pieces of non-descript rock that warm up immediately on being dropped into whisky and leaves a gritty residue.

My Chilindo whisky stones have joined my Chilindo travel alarm clock, the size of a large brick, my Chilindo all-terrain hammock, big enough for an emaciated three year-old and my Chiiindo wall clock, with hands the same colour as the clock face so you can't see the time.

I'm typing this lying on my bed because my Chilindo fold up camping seat is too narrow to sit on.

My second glass, by the way, had a chunk of ice in it!

^just ordered some, £3.89 for 9 in a velvet bag.

Good Scottish granite I hope. Not this shite I paid 81 Baht for! Pieces of concrete I reckon.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Mendip again.

I'm pretty chuffed with my homemade wine. I'm currently drunk and about to stagger off to bed. G'night all.

Originally Posted by JPPR2

They do work to slightly chill the Bourbon or Whiskey however adding one small ice cube liberates the alcohol and also makes it aromatic. You can swirl it around in the glass and check out the legs to determine the level of alcohol. There is an entire science about it. Depending on the Bourbon or whiskey, I drink neat or add a cube. Also to note, the glass one uses has an impact on its taste and smell. Same goes for wine as I've been told. Maybe LuLu can offer up some wine information on his Boxed Mont Claire.

The best way to drink whiskey, according to science

By Jenna Gallegos


August 17, 2017 at 9:00 p.m. GMT+8

Two physical chemists walk into a bar. They order whiskeys, and a jolly Scotsman one stool over insists they add a splash of water to optimize the flavor of the spirits. Inspired by the smooth, smoky flavor, they vow to investigate a question whiskey enthusiasts answered decades ago: Does adding water to whiskey really make it taste better?

That’s the almost true story behind a paper published this week in the journal Scientific Reports. Bjorn Karlsson and Ran Friedman of the Linnaeus University Center for Biomaterials Chemistry are not whiskey drinkers, but Friedman did visit Scotland, and he raised an eyebrow at the locals' dedication to watering down even the fanciest Scotch.

Like a good scientist, he wanted to test the assumption, so he teamed up with Karlsson and used computer simulations to model the molecular composition of whiskey.


There are two competing theories for why adding water to whiskey might improve the flavor, Karlsson said. The first suggests that adding water traps compounds that are unpleasant.

Whiskey contains fatty acid esters that have two very different ends. The head is electrostatically attracted to water and the tail is not. Fatty acid esters in water can form compounds called micelles. In micelles, all the tails come together in the middle while the heads form a sphere on the outside, like a bouquet of lollipops with their sticks all tied together on the inside. Adding water to whiskey could, theoretically, cause more micelles to form, trapping compounds that don’t taste or smell good.



A competing theory suggests that adding water releases molecules that improve the flavor. Water and ethanol don’t make for a perfectly uniform mixture. Aromatic compounds could become trapped in ethanol clusters and never reach the surface. Our tongues are only capable of identifying the flavors, sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami (savory), so aroma is really important for detecting all the other flavors that connoisseurs appreciate in whiskey.


Karlsson and Friedman did calculations and found that fatty acid esters exist in such low concentrations that the first theory is unlikely, so they decided to focus on the second. In reality, “whiskey is a complicated mixture of hundreds or even thousands of compounds,” Karlsson said. They focused on just three: water, ethanol, and an aromatic compound called guaiacol.

Guaiacol is what gives whiskey that smoky, spicy, peaty flavor. Chemically, guaiacol is similar to a lot of other whiskey aroma compounds like vanillin (with the scent of vanilla) and limonene (citrus). These and other flavor compounds are not attracted to water and are more likely to become trapped in ethanol clusters.

In the researchers' simulations, they found that the concentration of ethanol had a large effect on guaiacol. At concentrations above 59 percent ethanol (the alcohol content to which whiskey is distilled) the guaiacol was mixed throughout. Whiskey is diluted before bottling to about 40 percent ethanol. In the simulation, at 40 percent, ethanol accumulated near the surface, bringing the guaiacol with it. At about 27 percent the ethanol began to aerosolize, presumably freeing the guaiacol even further.


If their state of the art simulations were a SIMS video game, you would play the role of a stressed out bartender and spend hours adjusting the water and alcohol levels back and forth. Not enough water, and the guaiacol won’t bubble up into the nostrils of your whiskey-swilling patrons. Too much, and your angry customers spit out the flavorless, watered down spirits.

“Adding water changes the equilibrium,” said Daniel Lacks who was not involved with the study, but conducts similar modeling experiments at Case Western University. The new model shows that diluting the whiskey “causes molecules to rise to the surface.”

But Paul Hughes, a food scientist and distilling expert at Oregon State, was not convinced that the propensity of ethanol to rise to the surface when whiskey is diluted tells the whole story. In the simulation, only three types of molecules were included, and their activity was modeled in a very tiny volume of spirits. “My sense is that the box they’ve used isn’t tall enough,” Hughes said.


The ratio of surface area to volume in the simulation is not at all similar to what you get with a bottle or a glass, he said. He predicts that disruption of the ethanol clusters within the bulk of the whiskey may also be important.

Whether by disrupting ethanol clusters or encouraging the molecules to rise to the surface, it’s clear that adding water to whiskey has the molecular potential to release important flavor compounds like guaiacol. So why isn’t whiskey simply bottled at lower alcohol concentrations?

If diluting whiskey really does mean that aromatic molecules evaporate from the surface, “by bottling at higher concentrations, you get less deterioration of taste,” Lacks said. Whiskey, by definition, has to be 40 percent alcohol, said Hughes. Diluting it would also increase packaging and distribution costs and take away the choice from the consumer.

At the end of the day, individuals should drink their whisky however they prefer it, said Hughes, but “if someone says they don’t like whiskey,” he added, “they just haven’t tried the right one yet.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ng-to-science/

2.36 quid for beer by the litre

^ Steady with the Fanta chaser!

Mainly Hock with lager chasers.

I have never been a fan of Scotch whisky. I have never liked the taste unless it was taken with copious amounts of Irn-bru. In Thailand I'll accept ginger ale as an alternative.

US whiskies on the other hand, I can drink neat or mixed without problem.

Tonight was a 15% primitivo red wine from Salerno. It knocked the wife out in one glass. Jolly good stuff but I'm struggling with the double keyboard on the mobile now....

Originally Posted by Troy

US whiskies on the other hand, I can drink neat or mixed without problem.

Good lord. Mary Jezus child

Because I am a peasant and generally drink my spirits with a mixer, I buy the cheapest brand available.

This seems to cause headaches, so I'm now forced to move up market and buy Gilbey's Vodka. lol

As far as Scotch is concerned, I rarely touch the stuff. If I do it has to be a malt, poured over a single ice cube, in a heavy tumbler.