Dilution of whisky – the molecular perspective

Now these are the articles I wished I read in Academia!

So guaiacol boils at 205°C. How does it end up in the whisky, after distillation? I mean, the water should come over before the guaiacol does.

It's disappointing they did not reference the seminal work by the father of the Periodic Table on ethanol/water solutions [1]. This work is often cited as justification for why Russian vodkas are 80 proof.

1. Mendeleev, D.I., O soedinenii spirta s vodoi, sochineniya (Total Collection of Transactions: On the Combinations of Alcohol with Water), Leningrad: ONTI-Khimteoret, 1937, vol. 4.

UPDATE on Mendeleev's work with alcohols: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/20...

Dale Schaefer and colleagues, who conducted the study, note that vodka has a long-standing reputation as a colorless, tasteless solution of 40 percent pure ethyl alcohol, or ethanol, and 60 percent pure water. All such beverages should have the same faint or undetectable taste. But sales of premium vodka brands have surged in recent years. Schaefer’s group at the University of Cincinnati worked with colleagues from Moscow State University in Russia to find an answer.

They knew that famed Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, noted for work on the Periodic Table of the Elements, made a key observation on alcohol solutions in his 1865 doctoral dissertation. Mendeleev believed that a solution of 40 percent ethanol and 60 percent water would develop peculiar clusters of molecules, called hydrates. That solution became the global standard for vodka, which usually is sold as an 80-proof, or 40 percent alcohol, beverage.

Right - it's the barrels that infuse a lot of the flavor.

This is mostly seen from the angle of guaiacol, which is relevant for peaty whiskies. Does this hold for less peat-forward whiskies? Could water dilution hurt some other compounds?