Whisky / Whiskey / Bourbon

Give me the 50 and then all you need to know is how to stop.

"2016 was a wonderful year for this bottle. Jim Murray gave it his ‘liquid gold’ award and it took home the world’s best rye whisky title at the World Whiskies Awards."

I never use sugar syrup but that sounds interesting enough to try. If only I was that organised.

Cheats way is to use a tea spoon of maple syrup instead of sugar syrup or macerating granulated sugar.

It takes about 5 minutes to make sugar syrup, stick a jam jar's worth in the fridge and it'll last you all year.

Take up valuable fridge space with sugar water? umadbro? I don't mind the stirring of normal sugar. Anything these days that slows me down a bit between drinks is probably a good thing too!

I've done the sort of maple syrup version you might've mentioned in the cocktails thread but I'm a bit of a sucker for the "process" in cocktails. If I was making them fast for a bunch of people I'd probably consider shortcuts but if it's just me or a couple of us, I'll do the dissolving the 'old fashioned' way (sorry, not sorry).

I'm guessing this fits in this thread...? Intriguing bottle from my brother.

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Hazel loves me, Ka La van Solist vihho barrique. A couple of other this year nikka yoichi amd lagavullin.

The other solist sherry cask is half drunk and given i have not seen another bottle for sale i am relucant to drink to quickly.

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Gonna give this a shot tonight. The Woodford is running dangerously low!

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Finished the Beam and moved to 13% barleywine. It was barrel aged in something very peaty so it's appropriate for this thread.

I love Nikka From The Barrel, however, you sure do feel that extra 11.4% over most other whisky's

It's one of my favourites. I always put a drop of water in it (and any other cask strength whiskey for that matter)

Not all cask strength whiskey respond well to water.

I drink nikka neat. Water seems to flatten the nose.

The ka la van soloist is 57% thats also nice neat. Water works on whickeys with legs. Those without legs water flattens the nose and pallette.

Good to know. I generally find cask strength too alcohol dominant for my pallete hence the water.

I find it fine. You get used to it. The solist whiskeys have so much flavour you taste that over the alcohol.

Some lighter whiskeys like suntory chita do benefit from a drop of water but i tend to add literally a drop as that whiskey flowers in flavour with a drop of water.

Actually i just tried nikka from the barrel with a drop of whisky and i like it. Not sure i like the two solists with water though ( i tried them again) the flavour in those when from full bodied to just tasting the spirit.

Whiskey with a drop of whiskey? Now yer talkin!

I have a bottle of Aberlour here at almost 60% that definitely benefits from a drop of water and a bottle of Redbreast 12 which is about the same. I haven't tried the Soloist. But agree that it's just a drop, very easy to mess it up by adding too much water and weakening the flavours. I actually find cask strength whiskeys really frustrating for that very reason

Waiting for some kind of normality to reappear here, as a trip to Aberlour is deffo on the cards.

I had one booked for September gone, was really looking forward to it.

Some whiskeys are flattened by a drop of water too. The legs, when you swirl the glass you sometimes see legs of whiskey running down, are the only whiskeys that i have noticed that benefit more often than not from water. By benefit i mean a flavour explosion.
High alcohol content for me is not something i care about. If its 60% and flavour explosion its fine.

The legs have a direct correlation with alcohol content so that might have more of an impact than you think.

Never noticed that as some high cask strength whiskeys don't have the legs some weaker ones do. I look at how runny tge legs are. While alcohol content creates the legs how runny the legs are depends on various oils contained in the whiskey. I was told the legs were related to the ester and other aromatics in the whiskey. I tend to add water a drop at time to whiskies that have slow running legs.

On the topic of legs and the Marangioni effect. Interestingly, it tells you more about whisky quality more than it does about wine quality.

https://scotchwhisky.com/magazine/ask-the-professor/25708/what-are-legs-doing-in-my-whisky/

The last sentence is particularly useful re: drops of water.