How Much Does Water ACTUALLY Change Whiskey? | Water vs. Knob Creek Single Barrel BLIND COMPARISON

[@redinthesky1]

Knob Single on the rocks is pretty fucking great

[@WhiskyForBeginners]

Over these past two years I've decided that I prefer my whisky straight. I used to always add a few drops of water when first trying a whiskey, but I never found one that I thought tasted better with water. So I quit doing it. Now there may be something out there which I would prefer with water, but after trying it over and over and always disliking the result, I've retired the water. Obviously YMMV. 🙂

[@motohead077]

I'm pretty much the same. Though after all the experiments, i found using lower proof whiskey in place of proofing water, works better for me. On the rare occasion I have a whiskey that has too much alcohol burn or just want to proof it down from 130+ to make it go farther, I found using something like EW Black 86P, works a lot better than water. It's basically flavored proofing water that I get for $16/1.75L. Also, works great in coffee, egg nog, ice cream, etc. Hah

[@davevogelsang6791]

Watching episodes I missed. What a great pairing/ review! I always add a few drops of water or have over a round ice cube the bourbons with a higher proof than 120.

[@TheWhiskeyNerd]

You're right on the money with water changing the whiskey, just a little bit will break up some of the oils and change the way it noses and tastes. With higher proof whiskeys like this, it can sometimes reveal more of the notes that are hidden by the alcohol, giving you more of the flavour you'd expect from a cask strength bottle.

[@stuffandwhiskey]

Thanks for watching Whiskey Nerd and for the great comment. Cheers!

[@RicCrouch]

I had the same experience with the nose on this one. I finished a drink of it, then an hour or so later as I put the glass in the sink, I caught a whiff of the remaining aroma and it was even better than before. Definitely gets better when it gets some air. I enjoyed this video because I really prefer this on with a rock-the water makes a difference for me.

[@saucyshane8687]

Great video! Very interesting blind 👍 I just picked up 2 of the Tennessee Strong 2021 Knob Creek single barrel 🥃 Awesome pour! Cheers y'all

[@stuffandwhiskey]

Heck yeah! Enjoy those KC picks Shane. Cheers buddy!

[@matthewhall8790]

My neighborhood liquor store has a really good KC SiB store pick that's 9 years and 11 months old, love that stuff.

[@ADHDWhiskey]

I was in the comments before the video even uploaded!

[@stuffandwhiskey]

Early bird gets the worm (which somehow seems wildly inappropriate to say in this context 😂).

[@jbbourbon178]

Dang it Matt! Go drink some C921 or something….for the love of Pete…

[@jasonc.5718]

I looked at the thumbnail too quickly and thought you were comparing knob creek to just a glass of plain water lol. Very confused for a moment there!

[@stuffandwhiskey]

Had a little fun with the thumbnail. 😉 Cheers Jason!

[@motohead077]

Josh & Erin, Fan of your reviews, etc, so much that I'm a paid Patreon now, so should prob msg you there. Found this older vid searching for stuff on KC picks & just wanted to put in some feedback: Love the idea of blinding a whiskey, with the same, that has been modified with water or even with another whiskey(ies). Ex. You could proof this down to 110 by mixing 50/50 with KC 9yr 100P. Been experimenting myself & figured out the exact formula to proof down to whatever proof you want. To keep it shorter, won't write the formulas here, just the results. But I can send them if you like. In the test you folks did here, you added 5 drops of water to 2oz of 120P juice. That only reduced it to 119.4P at most. Being that KC SiB is already proof down to 120 from 122 to ~150P, dropping another 0.6P seems insignificant. Starting at 120P. The 1st test should be at ~110P & then go from there. To proof down 2oz of 120P to 110P, you would have to add 5.38mL of water. That would over-flow your sample jars. 2oz = 59.15mL. 16-20 drops = 1mL So 86-108 drops would get it down to 110P. Though if you have a dropper marked in mL, use that. I think if schools used examples like this in the math textbooks, students would learn a lot more, hah. Hope to taste 1 of your own picks soon. Hopefully the RR arrives in Nov & sooo hope you do a 4R Brl Prf Pick!

[@stuffandwhiskey]

Good stuff all around and so happy to have you on board over on Patreon as well! The interesting thing on this head-to-head was how just a few drops of water can alter the whiskey, but we do like the idea of specifically proofing a whiskey to a specific point as well. Often times with ECBP batches that we don’t enjoy as much, we add quite a lot of water and find them far more enjoyable that way.

[@89sooner]

Super-fun experiment! I think of this every time you look up your bottle numbers…Do you have a triple blind earlier in your pool? Why are the numbers always an even and then an odd, i.e., 46 and 47? This is how my mind works.

[@stuffandwhiskey]

It’s always pairings with consecutive numbers. We always put matchup in that we hope are interesting, entertaining, or informative and having them listed consecutively works with our key system. Good question!

[@89sooner]

@@stuffandwhiskey Watched y’all’s allocated “defense” video after this and Drew P’s Russell’s 13 (maybe the only bottle, I have jealousy issues with, which is stupid) video and did a quickee 2 drops water side by side with 108.3 proof Belle Meade…I’ve added water before, but never like y’all did…pretty amazing! I get your system, it just seems like it should be 1+2, then 3+4, and ultimately 13+14, instead of 14+15. maybe you started with 0+1…It’s my OCD tendencies…ignore me.

[@stuffandwhiskey]

@@89sooner ahhh gotcha! Since we refer to our glasses and Glass 1 and Glass 2, we started our key with 10 vs 11 so as to avoid any other single digit confusion. And funnily enough we had Russell’s Reserve 13 totally blind *after* Rare Breed on our charity livestream fundraiser and preferred Rare Breed. We had some FOMO over Russell’s 13 ourselves but not after the blind sample.

[@89sooner]

@@stuffandwhiskey Good! I know we disagree on one of the two, but my touchstones seems to be Rare Breed at low barrel proof and Early Times BiB in that range. Haven’t dialed in a 90-ish proof or 120s bourbon as of yet. Need to rewatch the livestream…watched it late after an excellent show.

[@BrianKusko]

I may have more bottles of Knob creek than any other Whiskey. They're just so good and available. To date the only whiskey I've enjoyed adding water to is ECBP. Not that I've tried it with too many 😅

[@stuffandwhiskey]

We probably ought to try it with more, but after you do it so much and it literally never improves a glass, it gets a little old. There are definitely pours which benefit from water though, especially for folks who prefer nuance over punch.

[@johnhull2886]

How much water did you add? Any idea what you might have proofed it down to?

[@stuffandwhiskey]

No clue on proof but ~6 drops were added to the sample jar, so ~3 drops per pour.

[@johncwhite]

This was a silly blind must have been Josh's idea. LOL. I have been a Jim Beam fan for a long time Knob Creak is a very good bourbon.

[@stuffandwhiskey]

Nailed it. 😂 So often you see folks add 1-2 drops of water and then remark on just how much the whiskey changes. Was wondering how much of that is placebo and how much it actually does effect the pour. 2-3 drops per pour and neither of us pegged them as the same product so that’s saying something, and the way in which they changed with water was pretty surprising as well. Definitely some silly fun!

[@superman6338]

Unfortunately, I don't have any of the 120 proof knob creek... I only have a 100 proof 12 year one, and I have never tried adding drops of water to my bourbons before, but I hear about it affecting the flavor all the time (on videos), so I actually thought it was an interesting idea for a blind tasting video.

[@stuffandwhiskey]

@@superman6338 oooooh we hear that 12 year 100 proof Knob Creek is a fantastic pour! Haven’t seen it locally but it’s on our “to buy” list when we do.

[@877-MASH-NOW]

WHISKEY CHEERS 😎😎😎😎

[@stuffandwhiskey]

Cheers Jay!

[@badgerjeff6081]

When you two whisper to each other, we can still hear you :). Lesson here can be learned from the scotch drinkers. Try a whiskey without water and then with a drop or two of water. See which you like better. I often like a chip of ice or few drops of water in high proof bourbons. I'm not a proof heard like some folks! Great to see your blind reactions to these two samples.

[@tgentilcoremd]

Ugh :(! More scotch drinkers trying to "School" us "Stupid" bourbon drinkers "How" to drink whiskey. #idiot

[@tgentilcoremd]

P.S. I can already anticipate the "Scotch" community hate speech. Got it. Got it.

[@stuffandwhiskey]

So often when we’ve added water we’ve liked it less, so at some point we just stopped. This was pretty eye opening though in that both were great-just different. Especially on high proof pours we’re going to experiment some more. Cheers Jeff!

[@badgerjeff6081]

@@tgentilcoremd Not at all. I primarily drink bourbon. Just sharing some ideas to consider to potentially maximize enjoyment. There is no reason for the rude comment and hash tag. This channel spreads positivity. You aren't contributing by attacking people.

[@superman6338]

I swear it's the first time Erin smelled something other than "smells like bourbon"

[@stuffandwhiskey]

Josh here. Since we’re tasting blind out of a pool that has bourbon, rye, and light whiskey in it, the “smells like bourbon” note is actually an important one (even though I’ve thrown it out multiple times when we’re tasting a rye 😂). A good classic bourbon nose is a thing of beauty.

[@superman6338]

@@stuffandwhiskey it wasn't meant to be a dig at all... It's funny. I like to see my wife's reactions to smelling and tasting my whiskey. If I had more motivation... I would start a KZbin channel of just my wife reacting to how strong the taste and smell of the whiskey/bourbon is that I just offered her... It's so hilarious. I've actually found a few that she likes... progress.

[@stuffandwhiskey]

@@superman6338 no dig taken at all. It’s always interesting conversation. Just giving some context around our blind pool and where our brains go as we get into a head-to-head tasting. A reaction channel of a non-whiskey drinker to pours definitely has a place from both a point of interest as well as entertainment. Cheers and thanks for watching and commenting as always! We appreciate you. 🥃

[@andrewvermeire6125]

I was looking forward to this one and not just to leave a long nerdy comment. Great as always. If anyone wants the nerdy nitty gritty on why water does what it does to whisky you can read the rest of this comment. I can't explain why the water one would drink hotter, maybe for the same reason you taste more. I know that sounds weird, taste more when you add water, but there are a lot of compounds adding to whisky flavor. Those compounds are very densely packed together. Some even binds to ethanol. So picture this, say you have 100 taste receptors. The whisky with out any water will put 120 flavonoids over those 100 taste receptors. Regardless of how long you chew on that whisky you wont get all those flavors simulating your tastes at the same time. Some of the flavor is getting locked out, or still bound to an ethanol molecule. Putting a small amount of water allows those flavonoids to release from ethanol molecules and spread out and creates a closer ratio to the number of flavors to the number of receptors. You're literally tasting more of the flavors in the whisky at one time. Once you have added water to the point the flavors are spread out too far across the palate, it is watered down. If your bored one night take the same whisky and start with just a drop or 2 like you did here. Using a ml pipet add 0.5-1ml (5-10 drops) of water at a time, swirl, and taste. Repeat. See what all you can taste before it's watered down.

[@stuffandwhiskey]

Fantastic comment Andrew! Thanks for watching and for taking the time to drop some knowledge. Cheers!

[@LP23D6]

Knob Creek? I always have my eye dropper out. I had a barrel pick I couldn't tame. I tried everything in the kitchen. It was almost a drain pour. Yes, a couple drops of water can completely change a spirit.

[@big_goat]

Bartender: what will it be? Customer: knob creek Bartender: we only have knob creek Customer: okay give me the knob creek This how this tasting went

[@jbbourbon178]

Wow am I first for once???

[@stuffandwhiskey]

First or very close. You and ADHD Whiskey were quick draws today. Cheers!

[@stchrbarrow]

She didn't wound me this time but you... JK. I think this proves side by side taste tests can mean very little due to taste perceptions changing from day to day.

[@stuffandwhiskey]

Spot on. Taste is so subjective and varying day to day that your comment really hits the mark for anyone at anytime. We find blind side by side tastings to be far more effective for comparison than any other (flights get muddy between glasses, and solo pours on different days are too hard to compare), but anything taste-related should always be held loosely as it’ll vary so much person to person and day to day. Great comment buddy! Cheers!

[@LeatherDaddy97]

I dont usually add water just cause i usually find that it just isnt what im looking for from the whiskey

[@stuffandwhiskey]

Saaaaame. Often feels like unnecessary hassle.