Tag: research

Put a microlitre of bourbon on glass at cask strength and it dries into a featureless film. Dilute the same whiskey to 20–25% ABV and it dries into a web of strands distinctive enough to identify the brand more than 90% of the time. The pattern is made of what the spirit carries — which is precisely why the water you dilute with has to carry nothing.

Every whisky forum has an opinion about which water belongs in a dram, and almost none of it has been tested. When researchers finally ran the experiment with a trained panel, the answer was more interesting than either camp expected — and it explains exactly which waters ruin a glass and which ones simply disappear into it.