How Do You Drink Your Whiskey?
I know I know in a glass, right? Fine you got me there. What I mean is do you drink it neat, on the rocks or with a drop or two of water? Everyone has their own preferences and even everyone here at Whiskey Tasters even takes their whiskey differently and really why not? Each way brings something new to the tasting and gives a whole new experience.
Neat
This is having the whiskey in a glass with nothing other than the whiskey. Also known as straight in many countries like Canada or the UK, but in the US straight means unmixed rather than without ice. Neat like all the ways to enjoy your drink is a matter of taste, but some will argue the advantages or disadvantages. Drinking your glass neat is said to be the real taste and way to enjoy your whiskey, but aficionados will argue that you are not opening up the whiskey by adding water to it.
On The Rocks
Another way to drink your whiskey is on the rocks. This can be a bit more complicated as on the rocks means a little something different to everyone. As for on the rocks or with ice and it could come like a regular drink filled to the brim with ice or you could ask for a small amount of ice as per your taste. One of the Whiskey Tasters likes to order his whiskey with one ice. That person is me and I always feel like a snob when I do. I tend to like my whiskey chilled and the one ice lets the water open it up but not overwhelm it with water. On the other side people are very against ice as it can numb your tongue and water your drink down and this would limit how you taste the whiskey. Even the BBC has an article about why you shouldn’t drink your whisky on the rocks, which is actually a good article to read if you have a few minutes extra to check out.
On the rocks also has an option of what’s called whiskey rocks or stones. These are stones, usually made of granite, marble, or even metal and are kept in the freezer until ready to use. The thought behind them is they allow you to chill your whiskey without diluting it like ice would do. In our experience whiskey stones tend to leave a chalky or stone taste to the whiskey and they also warm up quick and lose the point of them.
Water
The last way is to drink your dram is with a little water. I know it seems counter intuitive and feels almost like you are water down your glass and taking away from the taste, smell and flavor. Well the truth is you don’t over fill the water but rather just add one or two drops to your glass. By doing this it’s supposed to open up the whiskey and give you a full complete of taste and smell.
Honestly we at Whiskey Tasters encourage people to drink their whiskey, scotch, bourbon, or rye any way they damn well please. In each of our get togethers we give enough of a tasting that we get to enjoy the dram in each of the ways mentioned above. We like to see how each experience changes the taste and smell of the whiskey and some bottles have been made better with an added drop of water or a cube of ice, but that’s a story for another time.
Until next time raise a glass and enjoy
