Whisky and water

How much water does it take to make a bottle of whisky? How much water should you add to your whisky? These and other difficult water related questions answered!

Let's dive in! 😉

Along with barley and yeast, water is one of three key ingredients of whisky, it's used in two main ways in a distillery: ‘production' water is used make the wort (this needs to be rich in calcium for the yeast to feed on during fermentation) and to dilute the final whisky for bottling; ‘process' water is used in the boilers, condensers and for cleaning.

Production and process water may come from the same source or could come from different sources, process water could come from a nearby loch, river or from the same mains supply that you and I drink. Some distilleries, such as Raasay, have a closed loop cooling system - massively reducing the amount of water needed.

We've all been to the distilleries that tell you the water for their whisky comes from this river or that loch or this well or that spring...

But that isn't always the case, some of it comes from the mains supply.

A standard bottle of 40% ABV whisky contains 60% water so with water clearly being the number one ingredient in any bottle, it goes without saying that it must also be the most important? 

Does water have an impact on the final taste of the whisky? Some tour guides may tell you it does but most distillers think it has little impact. Bimber for example take their water from the London Mains supply like millions of other locals. They say:

"Bimber’s home is in West London, we’re an urban distillery not blessed with rugged landscapes, spring water boreholes and towering waterfalls. Consider the production of whisky as a whole – the pre-treatment and filtering processes and the long fermentation, double distillation and maturation regimes. By the time the spirit is ready to bottle, it’s impossible for the purity and taste of the original water to have a discernible impact on the final flavour and character of the whisky."

So while water is an essential ingredient in whisky, it's actually more important that the water be absolutely unremarkable in every way. It's a legal required, from Environmental Health, that every distillery in the UK filters its water before using it in their spirits. This is normally done using a reverse-osmosis filter that effectively removes everything that isn't water. What is left is very pure, but very bland H2O or dihydrogen monoxide - just plain water. A second reason distilleries filter their water is cosmetic. If the water has residual minerals in it, those will precipitate out of the spirit over time, leaving a fine layer of white dust at the bottom of the bottle. There's no risk from it, but it can be visually off-putting. 

How much water does it take to make a bottle of whisky? 

I approached a number of distilleries to share their water use numbers - here's what Graham at Dingle in Ireland told me (approximate production water figures):

Mashing: Dingle run a 1 tonne mash, their first and second waters use 3,500 & 1,750 litres of water respectively. once fermented this creates 5,000 litres of wash at around 8% and 250 litres of draff.
Distillation: The wash is distilled resulting in approx 571 litres of spirit at 70%.
Reduction: The new make spirit is reduced to 65%, using 44 litres of water, giving 615 litres to fill into casks. 
Maturation: Each year the angels take around 3% of the spirit, reducing the ABV by around 0.5%, over the course of ten years the quantity of whiskey is down to around 492 litres at 60% ABV.

Reduction and bottling: Dingle's whisky is usually bottled at 46.5% so a further 634 litres of water is required giving 1,057 litres of whisky which fills 906 70cl bottles.

        
The total amount of production water used is 3,500 + 1,750 + 44 + 143 = 5,437 litres or approximately 6 litres per bottle of whiskey. The above figures do not include water for steam production, cleaning or cooling.

InchDairnie distillery uses 21 litres of water to produce 1 original litre of alcohol. 

Everything included, mashing water, reduction water and my coffee. Take 12 years maturation loss and final reduction to 46%alc. this works out at 9.25 litres of water per 70cl bottle. The distillery pot ale and draft are all supplied to the local AD plant and the digestate is spread on local fields. This returns approximately 80% of the, water to the water table. 

How much water does a distillery use in a week? 

Raasay in Scotland (water use of one shift - one tonne mash / 5 days a week):

Mashing: 26,703 litres
Cooling: 16,767 litres ‐ closed loop system with cooling tower (cooling jackets on washbacks & wash still & shell in tube condensers)
Boiler: 13,662 litres
Cleaning: 4,344 litres
Preheating: 621 litres - two heat recovery systems
Cask reduction: 3 litres

Total: 62,100 litres 

 All of Raasay's water for every stage of production – from fermentation to cask reduction and bottling is supplied from their own on site well traditionally called ‘Tobar na Ba Bàine’, meaning the Well of the Pale Cow in English. The water is drawn up through 60 metres of rock, filtering across volcanic rock and through the porous Jurassic sandstone, dissolving a range of minerals in the process. Mineral-rich Raasay water and long fermentations of up to 118 hours (5 days) develop sweet blackberry characteristics in their spirit before it even touches the cask.  

Ice...

Although it is a personal choice, again I'd suggest not adding ice or cold stones to your whisky, it's best enjoyed at room temperature, cooling it will dampen the flavours.



Whisky Water?

Is any old water really good enough to share a glass with as fine a spirit as single malt? A number of companies sell water especially for diluting your whisky:

Uisge Source claim that their three waters are "remarkable for their magical properties - the best water to use is the water from the same region as the whisky? Using water with similar properties will retain the whisky’s true and original character."

They have selected water from natural sources to "compliment the malts of Islay, Highland and Speyside. Three pure, clear spring waters, drawn by hand from private sources and bottled for the pleasure of whisky aficionados the world over."

The friends who started Larkfire were sat in a bar, enjoying a dram when the conversation turned to water. "Should we add it, or not? They mostly agreed that we added water - but what were their choices? On that night it was a choice between tap water, full of chlorine and fluoride or a hard mineral water."

They travelled across the length and breadth of Scotland looking for the perfect water to mix with whisky and after consulting master blenders, professors, chemists and geologists secured a supply of water from the Isle of Lewis. They suggest it's pure, soft, tasteless water which will "help unleash the whisky’s depth of flavour and its true majesty".

Whisky regions are a a little out of date, you get unpeated Islay's and heavily peated Speysiders - do we really need water from a region or will one neutral one do? I think the latter.

How much water should you add to your whisky?

This is a personal choice, my immediate answer would be none, I prefer higher strength whiskies because of the increased mouthfeel - a key part of whisky enjoyment in my book.

Traditionally a splash of water is added to whisky to 'open it up', but how much is a splash and what does it do to your whisky?

When testing casks a blender will normally dilute his samples to a fixed lower ABV in order to fully appreciate the smells and flavours of the whisky rather than the mouthfeel.

Michael Henry, Master Blender at Loch Lomond, dilutes his samples to around 26-27% strength:

"The additions are roughly:

• 58-67% 20mls spirit to 30mls water,
• 50-58% 25mls spirit to 25ml water,
• 46% 28mls spirit to 22mls water,
• 43% 32mls spirit to 18mls water and
• 40% 35mls to 15mls water.

Sometimes I round up to get to an easier measure with a measure cylinder so the ABV may be slightly higher like for the 43 and 40%"

Andy Watts at James Sedgwick (Bains & Three Ships) is similar:

"We 'break down' strength to +/- 25% ABV.

A couple of reasons why...at the lower ABV it brings out all the flavours (good & not so good) and also if tasting 10 - 15 samples it just lengthens your tasting ability i.e. doesn't anesthetise your tongue & tasting ability. Also  your nose (smell) is just as important as taste & at lower ABV it is again better for identifying good and or not so good characteristics.

Once we know we have a "sound" whisky then when deciding on what strength to bottle we will start at cask strength & slowly dilute until we think we have the right balance of ABV to flavour. We will then test strength & generally bottle then at that strength. A few exceptions in that all mainstream products (blends) will be 43%. Our standard 10yr Single Malt 46.3% but the limited editions can be anywhere in between 43% & cask strength."

Ian Palmer at InchDairnie goes a little lower:

"All samples used in organoleptic assessment are reduced to 20%. We always used distilled water and nosed from the standard tulip shaped glass with a watch glass on top. Gross volume to be around 30ml. Occasionally we will use coloured glasses if we are comparing mature samples which have a wide colour range."

On the other hand, Graham Coull at Dingle prefers 46% ABV:

"I go down to 46% ish then add drops of water from there. I prefer to focus around the strength that people will drink the whiskey at."

Tom Lunn at Bankhall is similar:

"We will often drop to  just ~40% when doing sensory and yes sometimes lower but not by much"

Let's try adding some water and see what it does to a few whiskies.

I've selected 3 whiskies - a 40%, 46% and 56.9% dram and will compare the characteristics both without and with water. I've added Larkfire water to each of the drams:

Whisky			Neat	10% water	25% water	40% ABV
	The Famous Grouse Smoky Black 40% ABV	👃	Gentle smoke, tropical fruit, drying icing sugar. Lots of vanilla and butterscotch notes.	c36.4% ABV (Not technically whisky anymore!) Everything is a little more subdued, the smoke and butterscotch have all but gone.	c32% ABV (Not technically whisky anymore!) Not really getting anything but a 'vague' whisky note.	As neat!
		👅	Very drying, smoke comes in immediately and then fades to give you dried pineapple, a little maritime salinity and some peppery spice. I'd suggest this was better than any dilution.	Not as drying but still dominated by smoke and sweetness. The salinity is there but the spice has all but gone.	Still smoky but very watery, there's no fruit or spice but a little vanilla and salted caramel has appeared.	As neat!
	Arran 10yo 46% ABV	👃	Huge orchard fruit notes: apples, pears, apricots; citrus zest, vanilla and a little marzipan.	c41.8% ABV Orchard fruit notes enhanced, citrus regressed, The vanilla is still quite strong and there's a little nuttiness.	c36.8% ABV (Not technically whisky anymore!) all notes regressed, very difficult to pull out anything more than vanilla.	Orchard fruit notes enhanced, citrus regressed, The vanilla is still quite strong and there's a little nuttiness.
		👅	Sweet honey, toffee, citrus and some underlying orchard fruit. Nice bite of peppery spice.	Much sweeter and spicier on the palate. The orchard fruit are still there but the citrus is now more prominent.	The spice has now come to the fore, there is still a little sweetness. Orchard fruit completely replaced by citrus. This does feel very thin now though.	Sweet honey and toffee jump out of the glass, huge peppery spice spice. There's a little orchard fruit and a lot of citrus zest. I'd suggest this was better than the 46% original.
	Kilkerran 8yo CS (Batch 5) 56.9% ABV	👃	Musty old bookshop, sherry soaked dried fruit, burnt toffee hazelnuts, oak, balsamic vinegar, maple syrup and a little seaweed.	c51.7% ABV Everything is  still there, maybe dulled a little - this is a complex dram and takes time to appreciate. If anything the maritime notes are enhanced, the toffee isn't burnt anymore - it's a little sweeter.	c45.5% ABV Things have changed a little more now - the musty notes have come to the fore, there may even be a little hint of sulphur. The fruit and nuts are much more difficult to pick up but the vinegar, syrup and maritime notes are still here.	Things have changed even more - the musty notes have all but gone, as have the vinegar and syrup. The toffee is sweeter and there is some honey. The maritime notes are more noticeable too.
		👅	Thick mouthcoating arrival, dry and nutty. Sherry soaked dry fruit, dates, figs, prunes. The balsamic vinegar, maple syrup from the nose are here along with some salted caramel chocolate. A little smoke.	Thick mouthcoating arrival, much sweeter, less drying. Toffee, honey, maple syrup along with chocolate and coffee notes, again a little smoke - very different from the neat version. I'd suggest this was better than the 56.9% original.	Not as thick but still sweet and dry. The dried fruit come to the fore now, the toffee regressed. Honey and chocolate notes with a hint of smoke.	The mouthfeel has obviously changed a lot, a little creamy rather than thick. The dryness has all but gone as has the smoke. It's the dried fruit, sherry and toffee which dominate along with sweet honey and milk chocolate.

Arran 10yo at 46% and 40% ABV

Kilkerran 18yo at 56.9% and 40% ABV

In summary: diluting your dram changes it - no shit Sherlock! The distillery has chosen to dilute to a certain ABV for a reason - a price point, a NCF standard or a batch strength. 

If you add water then I'd think you'd want something which doesn't add to the flavour at all - something very neutral - so Larkfire over Uisge Source's approach (although I haven't come across their water in order to try it) but don't use your own tap water! My simple experiments above have shown how the drams change and to be honest I preferred the Arran and Kilkerran at an ABV different from what the distiller though. Everyone has a different palate and prefers different notes from their whisky, so how much water you add to your whisky, if any, is up to you but it is worth trying, especially on higher ABV drams!

You can read the other parts of my 'ingredients' blogs here: Barley (coming soon), Yeast, Oak!