Bourbon and Branch Water (2013)
flemingsbond.com
flemingsbond.com
Or maybe it’s a subtle gesture to indicate that the whole schtick Goldfinger has developed as “country gentleman” horse farmer in KY is a goofy affectation, that he’s generally not as smart as he thinks he is?
The book and movie are not too much alike. I re-read (most) of it recently and found it to be in the "Flemming at his worst" pile. Whereas the movie is almost certainly the best Bond movie.
One thing I did like about the book, at the beginning Bond goes for dinner in the US with an acquaintance, where they have iirc crab legs and buttered toast. It's delicious, and Bond is disgusted at the opulence of it. They begin the meal each drinking a tankard of champagne. The whole scene makes me very hungry and thirsty.
My scotch drinking friends think it antithetical to add a splash or even drink on the rocks.
Whereas my Kentucky background also suggests it is the "proper" way to appreciate a fine bourbon. Water opens up the tannins and exposes more of the Oak vanillins and other flavors.
I think Scotches open up in fascinating ways, too, but it is interesting how much it upsets my scotch drinking friends when I do it.
Of course, where I really get into trouble is being careful who is around before I similarly try opening up the tannins of a wine with a splash of water. Way more people see that as sacrilege, but the same concept applies: there are interesting flavors trapped in complex molecules and the taste buds get different experiences when they are broken down into subtler components with just a touch of water.
Too many people cargo-cult drinking and put up a bunch of snobbery. The worst are beer folks who always seem to gravitate towards the most intense IPAs while ignoring the wonderful range of Pilsners and Lagers that are out there.
I'm a snobby scotch drinker and agree with a little water.
I was actually taught to add a little water to scotch in multiple pretty knowledgeable Scottish whisky shops and distilleries. The snobbish behavior around neat drinking is just that. Especially cask strength bottlings which really need something to open it. Just a tiny dribble of water, but it helps.
Icing anything though tends to dull rather than enhance flavor, so that's not for me, but couldn't care less how you drink it.
That said, if you friends are just drinking expensive, but mediocre and dull highlands type whisky, the water won't add much. If you're drinking something like an Islay with a lot more depth to the flavor it helps more.
People have been drinking beer for thousands of years. There’s a lot of value in high-quality, classic styles.
[Cries in Czech]
I jest of course :) The ležák beers that are most popular in Czech Republic (Pilsner Urquell in Bohemia; Radegast in Moravia/Silesia) are veeery nice, but they're probably not a huge departure from any good German beers, though there's some really fun smaller breweries doing cool stuff you may not see internationally. Great excuse to visit though :D
Apologies if it sounded like I was scolding, I didn't mean it that way at all :)
[0] - this is actually a fairly divisive issue to this day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Germans_from_Czec...
From my limited experience making beer at home, it's much harder to make a mediocre simple brown ale than a mediocre simple IPA. Grain and mashing is harder to iterate on than hops. Apparently the experts make a yeast bread with their desired grain bill as a prototyping shortcut (compared to spending days or weeks brewing and fermenting a batch of ale), but I never got that far before I was diagnosed with celiac and had to give up the homebrewing dream.
I'll grant that there was a time when a lot of places were IPA heavy but they basically always had a few other styles.
Now every brewery around me is really varied. They might have a couple types of IPAs but all have another 6 or 10 + styles. A sour or two, such as a Belgian or American type. Often a berlinerweisse. Some brown/stout/porter types. Not just oatmeal stout. And even different lager types besides "lager". I see Helles and bock, Vienna, pilsner, everywhere. A rauchbier at one place.
I've never really had to look at the IPAs in years.
I'm sorry you had bad luck finding the local craft breweries specializing in things other than IPAs, but they certainly exist in the US. I know that I appreciate how much Belgian influence happened in my city's craft brewing scene at a critical juncture. There are breweries here specializing in sours from years before it was a more national fad. Their only mistake not having a big enough distribution to get the most profit advantage from more recent trends or be that well known outside of the city.
Did it ever occur to you and those who think like you that people drink IPAs (and double, Imperial, triple, etc...) because they like them? Not because of lack of experience (I'm old, I've been into beer from all over the world of all types in my travels) but simple preference?
Probably the most dramatic demonstration I've ever had with dilution was with an Amrut cask strength single malt. It's downright boring neat, but over ice it opens up with peaches and pistachios and has since become one of my favorites for a hot day.
I find the “whiskey should only be consumed neat” crowd to have the same gatekeeping mindset as the “coffee should only be drunk black” crowd. If that’s how you like it, great, but it’s not a general rule for how these libations ought to be consumed, much less a marker of how “hardcore” you are as a drinker of them.
Same with coffee, actually: a little milk to bring out the flavor, in all but the most dry and winey specialty light roasts. From what I remember, the milk actually binds with certain chemicals in the coffee, allowing other flavors to come through. I believe this is also why even a small amount of milk makes coffee significantly easier on my stomach than completely black.
With Scotch prices what they are I switched to Bourbon and actually a really cheap brand (Benchmark) and when I don't drink it on the rocks I mix it with diet ginger ale: that really "opens up" something but I don't know what it is.
I love my specialty filter coffee but I often get gifted pretty dark and rather cheap blends, which work just fine for a milk coffee drink or other combinations
On the rocks is somewhat different, as it will dilute the whisky progressively as it melts, until it's lost most of its flavor. Chilling the whisky also reduces our ability to taste it, as our tongue is less sensitive when cold.
(If you're interested in the science of how dilution and temperature affect our experience of drinks, I highly recommend Dave Arnold's book Liquid Intelligence).
To me they open up in amazing ways with a splash of cold water or ice. Sometimes the oils in the bourbon will become very noticeable and change color if it’s very cold and it will change the test, for better or worse.
I love to squeeze orange rind (skin with no white part) and get the essential oils onto my whiskey and rub the peel on the rim. Opening a single barrel tonight now that you have me thinking about it.
Here’s an interesting video I found long ago about drinking scotch.[1]
Which is funny, because if you visit any distillery or talk to industry experts (I'm friends with one of them), they'll say that you should drink it however you enjoy it most.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf_QU9EmvzY
And for a more academic take on the question:
What am I missing here?
To my understanding, for bourbon any water added to the product is generally done prior to aging in the barrel. After that most of bottle proof comes from blending different ages of bourbon (because barrel ABV generally increases with age due to the angel's share and other factors) or different barrels of the same age that started at different (water cut) proofs to begin with (depending on the type of bourbon and its age statements).
On the factor of age, it is my understanding 60-70% ABV is expected for something closer to 7-10 year old bourbon and 3-5 years old (which is often the majority) is "naturally" closer to that 45-50% you see in the majority of bottles on store shelves.
The flavor compounds in each liquor are different, and volatile chemical reactions take place depending on dilution and temperature. You literally can't taste some things unless you add water or lower temperature. If they never add water or cold/ice, they're just missing out on flavor.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i5/whisky-and-how-do-you-bes...
"Although Hughes’s specialty is on the chemistry of distillation, he has some advice for appreciating whisky: Add some water to the spirit to increase your experience of the flavor.
Here’s his logic: When you add water to alcohol that’s at 40% concentration—as it is in whisky—the combination doesn’t mix into a homogeneous solution, Hughes says. It may appear that way by eye, but on a molecular level, you have clusters of alcohol in a background of water. Without added water, he says, those hydrophobic clusters hold onto flavor, and the drinker doesn’t get the full effect of whisky in the mouth. But, Hughes explains, when you start adding water, those hydrophobic clusters begin to break up, so more of the flavor reaches the tongue.
Hughes recommends adding a little bit of water to the spirit at a time until you find a flavor profile you like or you reach a 2:1 whisky-to-water ratio.
“Often people say you shouldn’t add water to whisky,” Hughes says. “But I’m of the view that it’s your drink and you can do what you like with it.”"
Source: previous contributing researcher & author on a whisky book. Member of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. Lived in Scotland. But also, just visit any distillery there. They’ll serve it with a very small pitcher of water, usually from the same stream they use to produce it. IIRC The Macallan even sell bottles of the water from their stream so you can mix it with the same water yourself at home.
As to why they don't always bottle it at the lower strength - perhaps it's because these higher-proofed whiskies are more for enthusiasts who will explore the whisky at different levels to find what they enjoy best.
Adding ice is more commonly frowned upon for all of the opposite reasons to the above. The cold shuts down the volatile compounds, and it dilutes the whisky (and thus changes it) in a way you have very little control over. That said, on a hot night or even just in front of a roaring fire there can be something exciting about that too.
The only wrong thing would be to say “true scotch drinkers don’t do X”. There’s no more appropriate place to invoke the No True Scotsman fallacy.
Bottled at 40% is because they watered it down.
Personally I like having a few sips neat, add a drop of water, another sip, a little more water, etc. You get to enjoy it at a variety of strengths instead of just the pre-mixed weaker strength.
In the world of Scotch, much of the more annoying, judgemental things come from people who are either inexperienced or who want to project some image about themselves.
So some say Scots frown upon adding anything to Scotch. Firstly, whatever my fellow Scots do shouldn't dictate how you enjoy our national drink. However you should know that there are Scottish people who will drink it with Irn Bru (our other national drink - an intensely sugary, bright orange soda) so IMO all bets are off :)
Secondly and slightly less related - there seems to be a culture of oneupmanship when some people make something a huge part of their identity. So in beer for example, you'll see a lot of beer nerds really shitting on lighter beers and lionizing more bitter, hoppier beers. I still recall a sign in a CAMRA pub in Edinburgh saying "What's wrong lager boy, afraid you might taste something?" - like the idea of a light, refreshing beer implies you're juvenile or less manly :) The same is sometimes true in whisky - harder, stronger, peatier is deemed by some to be more authentic. Adding a bit of water to your dram? Prefer a whisky in the range ~40-46% ABV? Don't enjoy Octomore? What's the matter, afraid you might taste something? It's dumb, if someone's giving you these lines just smile and ignore them :)
Finally a bit of snobbery relating to younger or blended whiskies exists. Age isn't everything in whisky, I've had younger whiskies which were delightful. I've had 12 y/o which I've disliked. I've had blends which I adored, I've had single malts which I did not like. I've seen guys insist on only drinking "single malt" - which is a dead giveaway that they don't know too much but they want to seem like they do. I think these types of people can be quite receptive to suggestions and guidance, so it's worth giving them a little nudge to try something they might not otherwise try - if they insist on having a Macallan 12 then "ok let's get a couple of drams, but let's also order a Famous Grouse (entry level blend which includes at least something from Macallan) and compare".
I think a lot of the negative elements are just related to insecure people wanting to get some free Cool Person points by associating themselves with things they think Cool People are. Which is a shame because my experience of the whisky community (outside those people) is that of people who are really open, welcoming and just enthusiastic about talking about and drinking whisky - which I think we all agree is cool! And as a Scot you have my permission to add whatever you please to Scotch. I sometimes like it on its own, I'll sometimes add a splash of water in some cases and in summer I'll sometimes have it with soda or ginger beer :)
> Of course, where I really get into trouble is being careful who is around before I similarly try opening up the tannins of a wine with a splash of water
This is super interesting and something I never considered trying! There have been some pretty overpowering reds I've had which I really should have tried this with. I'll try it next time!
(Grew up in Edinburgh. Drink it however you like, even poured into your beer)