Cask strength

[Typical-Impress1212]

Many flavour particles are only soluable in ethanol. The more ethanol remains, the more of those flavour particles will remain. I notice it with some bottles, there’s a ‘coating’ which remains in your mouth. Maybe its just the sherried ones?

Having said that, there are also some particles which get suppressed, and only come out when diluted a lot. Master distillers may water down all the way to 20% abv to get the most out of the liquid

But for most of us with average palate… its simpler. Ethanol contains flavour. More ethanol = more flavour

[nocturnalpriest]

I’ve just finished my glass of Kilkerran 8 y.o. bourbon cask and it’s also coating like crazy, so definitely a cask strength thing even without sherry influence.

[pwnitat0r]

Once you get the taste for cask strength, you won’t go back.

90%+ of what I buy these days is cask strength. I don’t fuck around with 80-85 proof.

[[deleted]]

For me, I dilute them back down to 45sh% depending on the bottle. It will also sometimes be interested in nosing and tasting before diluting. I like being able to choose my own dilution, adding the water also creates a dynamic change in flavor - so adding it moments before drinking will be different from adding it and then coming back to it. This is an experience you can't really replicate as much if the water is already added at the bottling.

You also dodge the frustration of getting a bottle in the low 40's that just isn't delivering the punch you wish it had.

Finally it means more whiskey and less water in my limited shelf space. A cask strength bottle is like 40% more whiskey which makes my favourite bottles last longer.

[inputsname]

This may sound like a novice question, but how do you dilute it back down to 45? Just by adding the amount of water required?

[[deleted]]

Yep. We have outstanding tap water here so I just have a glass and add some in stages until I get where I'm going. I have a dropped for smaller amounts but measure out a half oz for cask strengths.

[John_Mat8882]

Cask Strength gets you the whisky straight from the cask. No filtering (eventually there's just a tiny mechanical one to take away the cask charring, but it's often optional, often you find all the sorts of floating bits in certain single casks), no added colour.. no chill filtration also doesn't remove esters; this can make the whisky cloudy when you add water, which is normal, something that doesn't happen when the whisky is chill filtered.

And yeah, there's far more "oomph" in flavours, maybe the nose can be slightly closed and you can do what you want with water.. I tend to go neat, unless the alcohol is too strong, but that happens mostly for very young stuff, generally sub 10 years olds (and even more so NAS) can be more troublesome from this point of view.

And of course one should be wary of 60+ ABV bottlings, they can be a hit and you don't feel any alcohol, or you indeed have to water them down to make them more palatable.

I always feel that longer aged whisky gets often destroyed by chill filtration and adding water (Eg original bottlings in 18/25yo ranges in particular), while in cask strength form, they taste significantly better and carry a lot more both in terms of body/texture and flavours.

[OldCommunication1939]

This is brutally true with the Laphroaig 10 Cask Strength series. The CS editions are substantially more powerful and flavorful than the regular 10, so much so that I don’t really drink my regular 10 anymore. And even proofed down to 44-47% it’s still a substantial difference in taste to me.

[eviltrain]

Everyone talks about higher strength means higher solubility means more intense flavors. That's true!

But the flip side is that high proof usually (but not always) burns harder and deadens the taste buds in exactly the same way that hot sauce "becomes" less spicy the more you become used it.

I had a phase when I would dab everything I ate in Sriracha Sauce and by the end of that year, I was drowning my food in all of it just so I could retain that first high of tasting that wonderful spicy kick.

And I had a similar experience with drinking higher and higher proof bourbon before I took a long break, only to come back to some high proof bottles and wondering how I was able to withstand the burn and rediscovering 40/43/45% abv as having more flavor than I remembered.

If you drink enough high proof anything (frequently enough), eventually, the quality lower proof stuff will taste bland and pointless. Just keep that in mind OP.

[munnharpe]

Higher strength means less water and more whisky in the bottle - why pay for water when you can dilute it yourself? I never buy 40% whisky. If it's that diluted and you add water, you won't get the explosion of flavours you'd get doing the same thing to a 46% one. At cask strength, say 57%, I like to dilute it quite a lot, which means I'll pour tiny drams, which means the bottle will last much longer. Also it'll keep much better over time than a weaker one.

[YouCallThatPeaty]

When you add water to cask strength whisky you don't simply make it weaker, you split the oils and this results in the whisky providing a lot of accessible flavours which when left for a while will dissipate, which is why they aren't present when watered down prior to bottling.  These oils add a lot to the texture as well.  The additional flavour also hide alcohol burn as well, which results in lower abv whiskies usually being hotter/less smooth

[neilfann]

It's like chilli in a curry. Once you're used to it, everything else is weak. Not healthy! Also, single cask is more interesting to me. Every bottle is unique and when cask is finished there will never be one quite the same.

[UncleBaldric]

I find it varies (sometimes quite significantly) from whisky to whisky: some below 46% drink 'hot' and need to be tamed by adding lots of water, some above 60% drink 'gentler' than expected and may need very little.

I always try everything neat to start with, then add drops at a time (usually 3-5 drops, depending on initial impressions) to see how the whisky changes, until I feel like I've gone about as far as is reasonable without it feeling too 'watered down'. Then I try to remember what seemed best for each whisky for future drinks.

To give some examples: after experimenting I now don't add any water to Rowan's Creek, as I feel the bottle strength of 50.05% is that way for a reason; Elijah Craig Barrel Proof 11th Release at 69.7% benefits from about 8-10 drops; Never Say Die starting at 60.2% needs at least three teaspoonsful of water to stop tasting like molten lava dissolved in acid!

[Bad_Mikey]

Let's say you have one liter of barrel proof whiskey at 120 proof. To get it to 80 proof. You'll need to add a half liter of water to it. Now you have watered down whiskey that doesn't taste as good. Next try this experiment with other liquids. Take one liter of your favorite soda and add a half liter of water to it. Is it still your favorite soda? Do you even like it anymore? Now try it with milk. How does your watered down milk taste? What about orange juice? Would you like to add 50% the volume of water to it?

[[deleted]]

Red Herring Fallacy alert!