I've heard that a couple drops of water in a glass of scotch enhances the flavor, so often if I'm having a glass I'll do just that. Maybe it makes a difference, maybe it doesn't, but the whiskey does taste pretty good.

I usually dilute red wine with some water, if it was good enough for the romans...

Makes sense and I have come to the same conclusion myself while perfecting a tomatillo salsa recipe. My salsa would end up too thick, and the flavor seemed muted. Adding water thins out the salsa and allows the flavors to penetrate your taste buds. Viscosity is the medium for transfer of flavor. Additionally vodka is used in much the same way in cocktails, it becomes a base for other liquors to expand flavor.

I thought this was going to involve the joke about making homeopathic chicken soup: first, bring some water to a boil; next, hang a chicken in the window so that its shadow falls across the boiling water...

McGee FTW.

I've heard that a couple drops of water in a glass of scotch enhances the flavor, so often if I'm having a glass I'll do just that. Maybe it makes a difference, maybe it doesn't, but the whiskey does taste pretty good.

A couple drops? Huh. I don't notice a thing until I've diluted to about 4:1.

I keep a small glass of water next to the cup and keep adding water until I feel like the flavor is right. Some people go down to 1:1!

Is this like a flavor Saver?

People always forget about the crazy "actually you do the opposite" rule when making homeopathy jokes. Homeopathic chicken soup would be made by diluting whatever has the *opposite* effect of chicken at a zillion-to-one ratio.

They seriously make homeopathic sleeping pills with *caffeine* diluted to nothingness.

I'm not sure what the opposite of a chicken is though.

Sounds like somebody doesn't understand chemistry or physics. Evaporation depends upon partial pressure, temperature and surface area x concentration. Water does other things, though.

Scotch comes in many stregths; if you're drinking cask strength, you'd better dilute it or you'll burn your tongue. Enthusiasts aim for around 40% alcohol by volume. I prefer a bit less (more like 35%) myself.

In coffee, there is a very important difference between dilution and overextraction. A 6oz "espresso" brewed with 8 grams of coffee will taste considerably different/worse than a normal 1.5-2 oz espresso brewed with 8g of coffee then diluted to 6oz total. The barista being interviewed sounds like he is getting dangerously close to recommending overextraction.

The great thing about coffee and whiskey is that it is easy for people to experiment with it and find their own preferred taste, rather than take someone else's advice as gospel.

The Ancient Greeks drank watered-down wine, and considered drinking wine straight barbarous. Generally this was just thought to allow them to drink thirst-quenching volumes without getting drunk, but maybe the flavor had something to do with it too.

Chicken reportedly tastes like anything, therefore the opposite would be Nothing. Next hurdle: Dilute until you do not find Nothing anymore.

Quick fact-check btw: Hahnemann, the original out-of-ass puller of homeopathy, spewed the following: Homeopathy (from greek 'same') relies on stuff that has the same consequences as the thing you want to fight, diluted to nil. Isopathy relies on the same stuff that made you ill; and Allopathy relies on stuff that reverts the illness (medical doctors take to that one, the fools).
So to bring flavour (or fight dullness), Homeopathy would add TO2 in watery solution, Isopathy would add water, and Allopathy would add flavour. You decide.

I don't entirely understand what you're trying to say here. When you say "water does other things though," are you paraphrasing what you think the article is saying?

i don't know if that really qualifies as real homeopathy, but yeah, a little water to "open it up" is a longstanding practice with whiskey drinkers. A splash of water or perhaps an ice cube, just enough to dilute it down to allow the flavors of the fusel oils and wood tannins to be more easily picked up, easing back the concentrations just a bit to keep them from overpowering the tastebuds.

makes sense in coffee, too. Water balance is key in a lot of things, it's just common sense. Simple stock made too thick is just a salty goop. might as well chew on a bouillon cube.

A lot is being made in the article and here in the comments about Greeks/Romans mixing water with their wine. From what I understand, the principal reason for diluting in those days was because the wine was shipped in vessels sealed with tar---the water was necessary to dilute that flavor back out of the wine.

I dont see how a mere drop or two of water is going to impact a glass of whiskey, which is already about 50 - 60 % water. I think you need to seriously adjust the balance in order for this to have an effect. Most whiskey fans I know (not the same as whiskey drinkers, who drink whiskey and chase with beer because they want to get trashed) drink it with ice and water to bring out the flavor. Whiskey and water, straight up or on the rocks. It's as old as whiskey itself.

The reverse is true as well. . . alcohol brings out the flavor of, well, practically anything. Sound flavor compounds (like volatile essential oils) will be more soluble in alcohol, so a little wine in your cooking or paired with dinner or better yet, both, will do wonders. Ever notice that french food is often a little "bland" as compared to say Italian or Spanish or other continental cuisines? They take food-wine pairing much more seriously in France, and cook with a lot of animal fats, and you really NEED that wine to bring out the taste of french food.

I once saw Julia Child on Emeril not long before she passed away . . . he was talking about making potato soup, and the traditional recipe calls for just "water", and he said he likes to use chicken stock (big surprise, portuguese are salt addicts . . .) and Julie responded "NO! Water is best!". Modern cooks salt the heck out of everything, hell look at a meal at a modern chain or mid range restaurant, salty, cheesey foods, cream sauces, and ridiculous mixed drinks . . . it's all garbage.

What were we talking about?

"Sound flavor compounds "

Ugh, "some flavor compounds"

Better have another cup of coffee . . .

From what I understand, the principal reason for diluting in those days was because the wine was shipped in vessels sealed with tar---the water was necessary to dilute that flavor back out of the wine.

I'm not sure that that's true, although it's possible that it was the origin of the custom. But the Greeks drank diluted wine even when it was being drunk in the same place that it was made -- so no transporting in tar.

The principle reason seems to be that the Greeks drank wine more like we drink beer, and it wouldn't be uncommon for them to drink a couple liters each at a symposium. If they saw us drinking wine the way we do now, they would think us horrible barbarians for drinking such strong stuff undiluted.

I don't know enough to get into the history of Greek wine distribution, but as a person who makes his own fermented beverages at home, I can say that even drinking your own stash on your own premises does not resolve your storage problems.

Although to the larger point, I would agree that different drinking customs were also a factor.

I don't think water removes the flavor of tar from wine, and I'm absolutely certain that's not the reason for watering wine in the ancient world.

Fundamentally, water supplies were unsafe before the development of instruments that could confirm the germ theory of disease. When you drank water from somebody else's water supply, it probably had different microorganisms in it than your own, but there was no way to confirm or deny your ability to deal with those bugs except by risking illness (typically diarrhea, think about what that'd be like in a toga, tunic or lorica).

The obvious solution was not to drink water. But drinking wine around the clock tends to make one too drunk to function, and of course there were social stigma about drinking like barbarians, who were reputed to drink themselves into a stupor at any opportunity.

A functional compromise was to add enough wine to the water to inhibit bacteria. If you could not afford wine, you used vinegar, which was always cheaply available in wine-producing regions. The Roman Legions marched on vinegar, and used it for all types of sanitation, not just for drinking.

Drinking vinegar or watered wine is really about suspect water supplies, and not so much about the wine itself. But remember the custom developed from the ground up, because people who did it were healthier and more successful, not because the ancients knew what E. coli looked like under a microscope.

In ancient rome they used to age wine in lead jugs because it made the wine sweeter . . .

I'm not insisting on the tar argument, I just don't understand the "absolute" resistance to it. As far as I know, it's a fact of ancient wine culture.

It would seem that all these factor are related: wine was safer, but it got you drunk too fast and often had off-flavors---you diluted it, and congratulated yourself on your sound logic and moderate habits. A class chasm opened, and those who didn't dilute probably enjoyed the same level of prestige afforded to the modern bum chugging a bottle of Cisco.

Chicken doesn't taste of 'anything'; the flavour is actually from the bacteria in the corpse. The reason other things taste like chicken is because it's the same bacteria present.

Ice definitely opens up the flavor of good whiskey, in my experience. Without it, all I can smell is the alcohol burn.

And there's a reason many cocktails are shaken with ice before serving, and it's not just to chill them.

But I'm skeptical about coffee. Weak coffee just tastes weak. McGee's own "On Food And Cooking" states that it's better to err on the side of making your coffee too strong. You can dilute it with a splash of hot water if it's too concentrated, but if you make it too weak, there's nothing you can do to get the flavor back.

That said, I'll give his new coffee proportions a try tomorrow. I have a kitchen scale, so I can measure the coffee by weight. I actually have medium-roast premium beans (100% Kona coffee, which if you have never tried it, you've got to try it) so it will be a good test of this article.

(I'm serious about the Kona coffee, by the way. It's expensive -- about $25/pound -- but it is literally the best coffee I have ever tasted. Also, it's all U.S. grown and processed, and comes from small independent farms. You know who and what you're supporting.)

I prefer to dilute my bourbon with dry vermouth and a dash of bitters.

Absinthe is usually diluted (with lots of ceremony), though that's partly because it was normally made about 120 proof or more. Its close relative ouzo is also normally drunk diluted, with water and also ice.

No it wasn't. See this wiki bit on the krater:

Drinking ákratos (undiluted) wine was considered a severe faux pas in ancient Greece, enough to characterize the drinker as a drunkard and someone who lacked restraint and principle. Ancient writers prescribed that a mixing ratio of 1:3 (wine to water) was optimal for long conversation, a ratio of 1:2 when fun was to be had, and 1:1 was really only suited for orgiastic revelry, to be indulged in very rarely, if at all.

The reason there's "absolute" resistance to the tar argument is because it's "absolutely" unsupported by any evidence (which I know from study, not from Wikipedia).

You may be confusing that notion with the suggestion that the ancient Greeks used dehydrated grapes and other dried fruits to achieve high alcohol and sugar content in their wine, which would better survive shipping and would require dilution...but that idea also lacks evidence.

Hippocrates himself wrote that drinking the water of the aqueducts without treatment was unhealthy, and Heraclitus (and many others) condemned drunkenness. Thus the matter is adequately explained by period voices without reference to tar.

That's not to say that tarry wine might not taste better with water; modern and medieval brewers' pitch does not impart flavor to drinks but ancient Greeks may have had a different recipe. I am far from my library at the moment.

The coffee trick should actually be done after brewing. I find you're much better off brewing your coffee too strong, and then diluting with hot water until it reaches a natural sweetness. That point is different for everyone, so you have to experiment with a little bit of water at a time.

I am so grateful for this article.

Now I can say to all those people, over all those years, who've made fun of my "wimpy-ass" coffee (made with two-thirds or less the recommended amount of ground beans): "Pfffffttttttt!"

Those of you who have baked with vanilla are familiar with the effect. Pure vanilla extract doesn't smell very good and tastes worse. It needs to be diluted to not overwhelm the senses.