Cask strength, water and ABV

@redrich2000 - Cask strength is my preference, especially if it is not chill filtered - the flavours and abv are more intense and can always be adjusted, if required, by adding water to the glass.

Cost is a consideration as well. In my vast whisky region, Macallan 12yo is 40%abv at $85 or more. Mac Cask is 60%abv at $72 to $100...much better value for Mac Cask with 50% greater abv vs Mac 12 yo. In some jurisdictions the tariff increases as the abv increases, and might nullify any advantage.

I've never added water to a bottle of whisky, not even as a prank; it just doesn't seem to be a noble deed.

Hi @redrich2000 - with a cask strength whisky you can add as little or as much water as you like depending upon your mood / tastes on a given day - adding water directly to bottle would prevent you from fine-tuning to the "stronger" side at a later time if you wished (since you can't remove the water already added).

If you are happy with the lower strength version released by the distillery, and don't intend to have anything stronger, then you may not even need or want the cask strength version. But having the cask strength version gives you the possibility of having both - it's a win-win.

For this reason alone I would go for the CS whisky, but also because adding water to the bottle could have a detrimental affect on the integrity of the whisky in concert with oxidation - i.e. it could lower the shelf life of the whisky once you have diluted it. While I have no proof of that, I would venture to say that the water in the lower strength whisky produced by the distiller has had the conditioning / marrying time required for the complex alcohol / water interaction to produce the end product you're familiar with.

Merely adding water to a CS version of the whisky may not produce the same or similar result due to variations in the type of water used, quantity added, oxidation of whisky, storage conditions etc. If I were adding water to my whisky in a bulk fashion though, I'd do it with a fresh bottle of whisky and would make sure to fill the new bottle to the brim with desired ratio of whisky and water, and then I'd leave it for a few months, undisturbed before trying it.

I personally wouldn't jeopardise a good CS whisky though, although it would be a great experiment. I'd use a lesser whisky and a small bottle for testing!

Add water to the bottle? I'd never chance it. Bottle time affects the flavor of whisky, and there's no telling how and in what ways water would alter the flavor profile over time.

Leaving it alone also allows you more personal control over the whisky. I find myself using less water in most whiskies than I did just six months ago, as I now have a greater tolerance for stronger stuff. Not to say that your experience will be the same, but once you've added water to the bottle, you're stuck with it as is. Plus, I often vary how much water I add to a particular whisky, depending on how my palate is behaving on a given evening. Some nights, I'll enjoy the sting of a Laphroaig 10 CS with just a few drops of water; other nights, I might need a full teaspoon or even two.

In short, you'll not only be taking a great risk by adding water to the bottle, you'll be sacrificing any potential flexibility with the whisky.

Finally, there's no predicting what will happen to the overall flavor profile if you don't use the same water that the distillery used. A few drops of your own water in a dram is one thing. Watering down the entire bottle with tap water or Aquafina or whatever might cause some radical and unwelcome changes that can't be reversed.

I don't add water to a glass of whisky. I would never suggest pouring water in a bottle.

If I want to attempt to figure out how a whisky might taste with water I take a small sip of water (not tap water contaminated with chlorine), swirl it around in my mouth, swallow, then take a sip of whisky. This way I haven't diluted an entire measure of whisky.

For an array of reasons, as WhiskyBee suggested, one day you may desire a whisky at full strength, and the next you may prefer a 40%er. There are lots of good 40% or 43% whiskies out there so I never see the need to dumb down a cask strength whisky if all I want is something at a lower abv. It takes time (experience sipping whisky) to know which day will be which for you personally. Don't rush to reach that day; it will arrive in its own time. All you need do is enjoy the journey.

Adding water does not simply reduce the alcohol content. It also causes chemical reactions. These reactions will have the effect of changing the flavour profile of the whisky, releasing some characteristics and shutting down others. For this reason, as others have noted, it is far better to leave the whisky in its original form until it is poured into the glass. Then, to tease out every possibility offered by your dram, you can start by nosing and tasting neat, then add water (in increments as you like), to bring out other aspects of the whisky not observable neat.

The following explanation of the chemical interactions involved appears on another website:

Whisk(e)y has some crazy chemistry going on inside of it, due to the complex interactions between water, alcohols, oils, esters and other compounds of various complexity. The profile of these chemicals will vary between different whiskey/whisky styles, but the overall chemistry is similar.

Simple effects of dilution Adding water, or serving on the rocks, has a number of simple effects, such as diluting the ethanol a bit (ethanol anesthetizes your taste buds a bit), and cooling it (making your taste buds slightly less sensitive to certain flavors), but the fascinating part is what happens to the oily flavor compounds during dilution.

Dilution masks some flavor compounds Oily hydrocarbons are somewhat soluble in high-proof whiskey. There are long-chain esters and short-chain esters of many varieties. As you add water, the whiskey becomes more polar, and the long-chain esters become supersaturated and start to precipitate in the form of micelles, microscopic "droplets" of esters that have clumped together. In some liquors like absinthe or ouzo, these droplets can get so large that they become visible, and visibly cloud the drink (an intended feature of absinthe preparation). In whiskey, these droplets are usually microscopic and don't visibly cloud the drink, because most of the oils have been removed during chill-filtration.

However, these droplets do something important, in that short-chain esters, being more soluble in the droplet than they are in the diluted whiskey, enter the droplet and become trapped inside. These compounds are now less available for tasting or smelling. Fortunately, these compounds are the oily, grassy compounds that many people do not like in their whiskey, and masking them is considered an improvement.

Dilution releases other flavor compounds There is another type of micelle "droplet" that forms in whiskey. Ethanol, in high concentrations in water, forms it's own clusters, as ethanol molecules gather up with one another. Interestingly, warmer solutions cause more clustering of ethanol molecules, as do higher concentrations. Like before, these micelles trap compounds that are more soluble in ethanol than they are in water, volatile flavor compounds. However, unlike the oil droplets, these flavor compounds are desirable. Cooling the solution and diluting the solution both serve to "pop" these ethanol micelles, allowing them to release their trapped compounds for aroma and flavor.

So cooling and adding water can have the effect of both masking certain flavors by forcing them out of solution, and enhancing others by promoting their release back into solution. In the end, the result of the changed flavors is a matter of taste, which is why some people prefer neat, with water, or on the rocks, but one cannot deny that real chemical changes are in play.

This is the link if you are interested: cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/21902/…