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Should water be added to scotch?
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Are there some scotches were water should be added and some were it should not be added?
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How much water?
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Should the water be room temperature?
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Any particular kind of water? Spring? Distilled?
The answers to those questions are all about one’s particular taste.
I’ll drink Glenlivet with ice and water. Some people consider this sacrilege.
Add too much water and complain to your host, who will then add some more whisky. Try this as often as you can get away with it…
Seriously, I like less than a quarter teaspoon of water with my single malt, unless it’s cask-strength, in which case it might be as much as a couple of teaspoons. The water helps to release some of the interesting flavours. Some people in North America insist on no water, even with a cask strength. Their call, but I find there’s a bit of macho silliness in there…
In an ideal world, it should be the same water the whisky was made with. If you can’t get that, go with whatever’s available that’s not going to add a ‘foreign’ flavour - distilled, spring, your local tap water if it’s not too flavourful in and of itself.
And also - Slainte!
Certainly cask strength scotch should have some spring water added. With regular strength scotch, I usually take a few small sips straight, then add a couple of drops of water. I think it opens it up and releases the aroma. YMMV.
As mentioned, it’s all a matter of taste.
I never have any Scotch any way other than neat. No ice, no water, just straight into the glass. Others here, distinguished connoisseurs I’m sure, have sung the praises of adding a few drops.
What’s right for you is something only you can determine.
Some Scotch purists (haha) believe that any added water is sacrilige.
However, I tend to enjoy filling my shot glass to about the half-way mark with cold, filtered water, then topping it off with a fine single malt.
I figure I do that about 2/3 of the time I have Scotch at home.
As I learned from a friend and Scot who’s working as as first mate on some merchant liner (how much more True Scot can one get!):
Room temperature (or rather just above 20C/70F, not 98 in the shade room temperature), the mix should be about 1/4 water to 3/4 single malt. It should never be course or burn, but smooht as a liqueur (sp?). I find that I enjoy single malt a lot more, with lots of nuances and flavors.
People will say I’m nuts.
Chilling stuff diminishes any flavor aroma of any foodstuff or drink. Why would one want to lessen the enjoyment of a $50 bottle of booze ?
Scotch is whiskey that’s been flavored with dirt. Drink Irish whiskey, it’s better for you. 
*Mary Kate Danaher: Could you use a little water in your whiskey?
Michaleen Flynn: When I drink whiskey, I drink whiskey; and when I drink water, I drink water. *
Reminds me of going out to eat with my friend when I was 12. My friend’s father, a dignified businessman in his mid-50s, ordered the quiche, and a co-worker of his who was with us said, “real men don’t eat quiche.”
My friend’s dad promptly replied, “real men eat whatever the fuck they want,” and reiterated his order to the waiter.
Try adding water to your scotch. If you like it, keep doing it; if you don’t, don’t. Personally, scotch is too dry for me in the first place and water just makes it worse somehow.
Hey, we aren’t allowed to discriminate against people based on age, sex, color, nationality, religion, disability or sexual orientation. We have to hate them for something!
I add a few drops of water. This is the way I was taught when I lived near Oban, and I figured those guys know as well as anybody how to drink whisky.
At 12, I learned from my dad that it was scotch with a few ice cubes. I’ll have to go back and try it with a little water and see if I’ve been missing anything.
Not a huge whisky drinker, but living in Edinburgh it’s hard to avoid. From drinking with the cognescenti, as well as being dragged out to the Royal Mile Whisky centre once or twice - water is perfectly acceptable for reasons already described. Ice is not, for the same reasons you wouldn’t drop an ice cube in a glass of grand cru Saint Emillion - it’s just going to freeze your tastebuds and wreck the sensation.
So if you’re drinking a decent malt, you shouldn’t add any ice. If you’re just knocking back a measure of Famous Grouse then I doubt it really matters.
My own experience is that with, for example, The Balvenie (sp?) that it is immeasurably improved by a drop or two of room temperature water.
I took a single malt tasting class once. I tried scotch with and without water. I noticed that water does add newer flavors. It’s similar to swirling a glass of wine.
The amount of water depend on your taste. We added a cap full.
Chilling scotch kills the flavor. I wouldn’t chill any scotch worth more than $30.
I saw a little video on the Glenmorangie site once, that purported to show the proper way to imbibe their beverages. A bit of water was indeed included as part of the process. Their current site is loading too slowly for me to search for it now.
Don’t know if the ritual is same for those peaty Islay malts, but then when it comes to them I’m much more of Cluricaun’s position. I prefer the smoother, sweeter, more caramelly, no doubt vastly wussier Irish Whiskeys ;). Sadly, with my undoubtedly horribly unsophisticated palate, whiskeys like Laphroaig taste to me like someone took the purest, most sublime alcohol in the world…
…and mixed it with the liquid dredged up from the bottom of a low smoldering tire fire in a dump after 17 days of steady drizzle :p.
Outside!
That would be a video showing a way to imbibe their beverages which appeals to the majority’s expectations. It doesn’t necessarily show the best way to drink the stuff. (Which is: don’t. Go for Islay, or Talisker. Mmmmmmm. No water or I kill you.)
I’ve never seen a drinking competition based on shots of Islay whisky, but it could be fun…
As long as you’re talking Bowmore 17 or Bunnahabhain, I’m in! Anything else would be like taking shots of turpentine mixed with the dregs from the bottom of my BBQ grill.
Yet, I adore Talisker. Go figure.