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Dilution of whisky – the molecular perspective

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Re: Dilution of whisky – the molecular perspective

#61

Post by KGIII »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #60
KGIII wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. Good whiskey is perfect when you get it. The folks who made it know how to make good whiskey. I never buy cask strength.

That's a shame. There are some Lagavulin and Laphroaig bottlings that are amazing at cask strength, without any additional dilution.

I haven't found one I really like. I've been enjoying some 18 year old Buchanan. I refuse to spell it without the 'e.' Not that I have a war to win, but spellcheck prefers it and I let spellcheck make many choices for me. It's for the best, really.

Re: Dilution of whisky – the molecular perspective

#63

Post by Eigenstate »

gnat wrote: post #39

Huh, they used two different versions of the Amber software: v10 for molecular dynamics, v15 to calculate spatial distribution functions. Amber: http://ambermd.org/ I wonder why.

I use Amber to do similar calculations. It's distributed as a free set of analysis and preparatory programs called AmberTools, which is the V15 software cited, and a licensed simulation program, which is v10. Interestingly, that is a super old version (usually it's released every other year or so with the number corresponding to the year)

Re: Dilution of whisky – the molecular perspective

#64

Post by kasey_junk »

tptacek wrote: post #28
levesque wrote: post #10

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?

It's a good question, but much (in a lot of cases maybe most?) of the flavor of a whiskey comes from the cask, not the mash bill, and guaiacol is a component of the wood flavor as well.

Ummm citation please? I'm not even sure of a measurement that you could cite for "flavor" that would be generally agreeable to experts.

But certainly mash bill vs cask is the biggest debate in whiskey right?

Like I'm a mash bill guy but I'll buy that I'm wrong cause the science is unclear.

Re: Dilution of whisky – the molecular perspective

#65

Post by tptacek »

kasey_junk wrote: post #64
tptacek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good question, but much (in a lot of cases maybe most?) of the flavor of a whiskey comes from the cask, not the mash bill, and guaiacol is a component of the wood flavor as well.

Ummm citation please? I'm not even sure of a measurement that you could cite for "flavor" that would be generally agreeable to experts. But certainly mash bill vs cask is the biggest debate in whiskey right? Like I'm a mash bill guy but I'll buy that I'm wrong cause the science is unclear.

Woodford Reserve does a rye thing where they sell a pair of identical mash bill bottles, aged for the same amount of time, one in new oak and one in "used" (ex-rye). The difference is huge; they're not remotely the same whiskeys.

Meanwhile, Four Roses Single Barrel does annual releases with different "recipes", varying in mash bill and yeast strain. If you actually go to Four Roses, you can buy a bottle of every recipe. My brother did that and we did a tasting, and it is very hard to tell them apart.

I can't give you a scientific cite, but from experience: cask is a huge flavor influence. Chuck Cowdery suggests it's why indie distillers have such a hard time turning out good product (they use smaller casks, which age whiskey poorly).

Note though that expecting exactly this kind of response, I said "in a lot of cases". And, of course, I'm not saying you couldn't immediately tell the difference between a non-peated bourbon-aged barley Scotch and a corn whiskey, or the difference between a wheated bourbon and a high-rye bourbon!

My only point is: wood flavors are important to non-peated whiskey. :)

Re: Dilution of whisky – the molecular perspective

#66

Post by plaguuuuuu »

georgecmu wrote: post #6

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…

>All such beverages should have the same faint or undetectable taste. But sales of premium vodka brands have surged in recent years.

Not sure what the threshold is for "premium" vodka, but anything not relatively high in price very objectively tastes like Satan's armpit

Re: Dilution of whisky – the molecular perspective

#67

Post by mirimir »

Kadin wrote: post #23
mirimir wrote: post #4

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.

Scottish (and most, although not all, other types of) whisky is produced using a "pot still" rather than a modern column, so you don't get an exact separation by boiling points. I mean, generally you're running the still at under 100C, but you get a substantial fraction of water (~30%) in the output as well. I suspect that if you plotted the still's throughput as a function of boiling point of the inputs, what you'd…

OK, thanks. So they use a still with low BP resolution, and so there's appreciable higher BP stuff in the product. But doesn't that also make it harder to exclude methanol and other low BP stuff?

Re: Dilution of whisky – the molecular perspective

#68

Post by mirimir »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #24
martingoodson wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liquids partially vaporise below their boiling point (eg water vapour in humid air). See http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf60134a022?journalCode=...

There's also the possibility of forming an azeotrope (like with ethanol/water at 96% ethanol). Azeotropes are cool, they're exploited a lot e.g. as working fluids in heat pumps.

Interactions between ethanol, water and guaiacol are a key concept in the article. So there could be an azeotrope, I suppose. There's one for anisole aka methoxybenzene. Its BP is 153.8°C, and the anisole-water azeotrope (40.5% by weight) boils at 95.5°C.[0] Guaiacol is 2-hydroxyanisole, so maybe there's one for it too.

0) Horsley (1947) Table of Azeotropes and Nonazeotropes http://sci-hub.io/10.1021/ac60008a002

Re: Dilution of whisky – the molecular perspective

#69

Post by dghf »

NinjaViking wrote: post #17
ams6110 wrote: post #16

I've always spelled it whiskey.

That's the American/Irish spelling. If it's a Scotch it's whisky.

> If it's a Scotch it's whisky.

Also Canadian, Japanese, Australian [0], English [1] and Welsh [2].

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/apr/02/tasmani...

[1] https://www.englishwhisky.co.uk/the-whisky

[2] http://penderyn.wales/

Re: Dilution of whisky – the molecular perspective

#70

Post by appleflaxen »

georgecmu wrote: post #56
jartelt wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure who is right, but there is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Mendeleev#Vodka_myth

From the wikipedia page you're citing: However, Mendeleev's dissertation was about alcohol concentrations over 70% and he never wrote anything about vodka. This is clearly not true. Page 81 (Chapter 4) of Mendeleev's dissertation [1] starts as follows: На осно­ваніи этого, желая съ возможною точностію опредѣлить составъ той смѣси спирта и воды, которой при разныхъ температурахъ соотвѣтствуетъ наибольшее сжатіе, я изс…

where does that say whiskey? google translate provides:

    On the basis of this, wishing, with the utmost precision, to 
    determine the composition of the mixture of alcohol and water, which 
    corresponds to the greatest compression at different temperatures, I 
    used a mixture containing from 40 to 50 percent of anhydrous alcohol. 
    This study consists of two main parts: the preparation of the sms and 
    the definition of their extra vias. I'll describe the first, the 
    second is set out in the second chapter.
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