The Water in the Whisky
The few drops of water some whisky drinkers add aren't a compromise at all.
There is a small act that divides a room of whisky drinkers: the few drops of water.
To some it looks like a compromise, a way of softening a drink you couldn't take neat. In fact it is closer to opening a window.
The reason is a single molecule.
One of the main carriers of whisky's smoke and peat is a compound called guaiacol. In a high-proof spirit it stays bound up in the alcohol, slow to reach the nose. Lower the strength -- a few drops is enough -- and it stops mixing so willingly. It drifts to the surface, where the drink meets the air, and that is exactly where you smell it first.
A 2017 study at Linnaeus University in Sweden found the same thing in a molecular model of the spirit: at lower proof, more guaiacol collects near the surface. Add a little water and you are not diluting the aroma. You are floating it up to meet you.
This is worth remembering, because the gesture reads as the opposite of expertise -- a beginner's move, a loss of nerve. In truth the drinkers who add water are often chasing more of the whisky, not less.
None of which makes it a rule. Cask-strength whisky has the most to gain; a spirit already near the usual strength has less room to move. And past a point, water flattens a drink. The trick is a few drops, judged by the nose -- and the right amount is personal.
But the next time someone reaches, a little embarrassed, for the water, it is worth knowing what they are doing.
Not watering the whisky down.
Letting it speak up.
