It took a year, but they are finally releasing Noilly Prat Extra Dry on the US Market nationally, so now I'll explain the difference and Extra Dry and Original Dry.
From 1979 until 2009, the dry vermouth from Noilly Prat sold on the US market was called "French Dry Vermouth". It was different than the version sold in the rest of the world.
In 2009 they replaced this bottling with Original Dry, which was the version of Noilly Prat sold in the rest of the world.
Starting this summer, the former US version "French Dry Vermouth" will be called "Extra-Dry" and the Original Dry will also still be sold. So:
Original Dry = International Version
Extra Dry = US Version that was sold until 2009 and is now back on the market.
There are four production differences between Original Dry and Extra-Dry. In order to best understand them, it might be helpful to read about how Noilly Prat is made in general. Then read the below.
Differences between Noilly Prat Original Dry and Extra-Dry
Extra-Dry uses only clairette wine while Original Dry uses a combintation of clairette and picpoul. This is because clairette oxidizes less.
Extra-Dry uses less of the sweet mistelle wine, so it is, in fact, drier.
Both Original Dry and Extra-Dry use the same 20 herbs and spices, but in different ratios.
The wine for both Original Dry and Extra Dry is aged outdoors for one year, but after infusing that wine with herbs and spices, the Original Dry is aged an additional 6 weeks to 3 months. Extra Dry is bottled without this extra aging step.
Extra Dry tastes fruitier than the dry, and less woody. It is also clear as opposed to lightly yellow, and clearly intended for use as a mixer in Martinis and other cocktails. Original Dry can be mixed into cocktails or consumed on its own as an aperitif.
Hopefully soon both Original and Extra Dry will on store shelves again so you can compare the two side-by-side.
Noilly Prat Rouge is still on the market, and Noilly Prat Ambre will soon be available in major US cities.
John Jeffrey is the Head Distiller for Death's Door Spirits. He makes vodka, rum, and white whiskey and will be releasing aged whiskey in the future. The below information is what I learned from John and on my visits to other distilleries.
They run what I've been calling a pot-column hybrid still, though I'm sure there must be a better name for it. There is a pot on the bottom and then it is attached to one or several columns depending on how they configure it.
Part of the reason I proposed the seminar for Tales is that I would see these types of stills (usually in start-up or small distilleries) and dismiss them as being column stills in another form; or working just like other column stills.
However, these stills, unlike those for bourbon and rum/vodka, are not continuous stills but rather batch stills. You make a batch, then start over with a new batch; as opposed to the other stills that can run 24/7 without stopping.
In some of these stills, solids and liquids (beer with grains, fermented fruit chunks, etc) are put into the pot on the bottom. The pot separates out the solids from the liquids, as well as separates out water from alcohol. The mostly-alcohol vapors then go up through the column for rectification.
Stripping Column
At Death's Door, they don't put solids in the pot still though. They employ a separate 'stripping column', which is basically a bourbon column that separates the solids from the liquids as well as concentrates the alcohol a bit. (The column is mostly stainless steel, but as we talked about in the bourbon column post, the copper is important to have in the top of the column – you can see in the picture that the top of the stripping column is copper.)
Stripping column at Death's Door Spirits. Note copper at top of column.
Making Whiskey, Vodka, and Gin on One Still
This liquid alcohol then goes into the pot and is distilled. It is run through different columns depending on what product they're making. For whiskey, they don't run the alcohol over a ton of plates in several columns to remove all the flavor. However, they want to increase the amount of time the liquid spends in contact with copper in the column, so they run the vapor through one or more columns with no plates inside.
Death's Door Spirits Stills
Jeffrey said that for aged whiskey, they wouldn't do this, as many of the congeners break down over time in the barrel. But as they make unaged white whiskey, they want to get rid of more of those congeners right from the start.
For gin, they do not put botanicals into the pot still, but instead pack them into a different column (circled in pink below). The alcohol alone passes through the pot and column on top of it, then the refined vapors pass through the botanical column.
Gin botanical column circled in pink. Stripping column circled in blue.
In order to make vodka, they want a high-proof, clean spirit. Thus they refine the alcohol through several of the columns with lots of plates in them – over 40 plates in all. The two columns on the right are used for their vodka.
So that's what I think I know about this type of still. If you have any questions, let me know and I'll try to get them answered.
At the Tales of the Cocktail convention this year, I moderated a panel with three distillers who run column stills; one 5-column rum still, one continuous bourbon still, and one pot-column hybrid.
Liza Cordero is the Process Director for DonQ rum, made at the Serralles distillery in Puerto Rico. She runs a pretty gigantic 5-column still. It makes DonQ rum and also custom products for other brands. The information below is from the seminar as well as what I've learned in my distillery visits around the world.
The stills that make DonQ Rum
In my last post, we discussed how bourbon is made in a single column. The single bourbon column specializes in being continuous (as opposed to a batch-run pot still) and separating the alcohol from the water and from the solids in the low-alcohol beer that is put into it.
In a 5+ column still, this is also what is happening, but just in the first column or two. (It seems that columns can be split or divided in two according to purpose, or in some cases just to keep the height down so that airplanes don't hit them.) The center columns are for refinement of the spirit. The final column is for recycling of waste alcohols.
I can't claim to fully understand what is happening in each of the three middle columns exactly (yet!) but between the seminar, a detailed description of Grey Goose, and two Absolut vodka distillery visits it seems that the columns do five different things:
The first columns separate solids from liquids, and the alcohol from water. The alcohol can be partially refined in this column above the level at which the beer enters the still (as mentioned in the previous post).
In one (or more) columns they dilute the newly-distilled spirit with water and redistil it, and remove certain components. This is hydro-selection.
In another one (or two) rectification columns they take out other components – "high and low oils". At Grey Goose, this is split into two columns; one that uses pressure to separate components and another than uses a vacuum.
One column removes methanol from the final spirit.
Sometimes a final column captures waste alcohols pulled from other columns and processes them into a recyclable form.
So that's what I think I know about multi-column distillation for high-proof products like rum and vodka. If you have any questions, let me know and I'll try to get them answered.
At the Tales of the Cocktail convention this year, I moderated a panel with three distillers who run column stills; one 5-column rum still, one continuous bourbon still, and one pot-column hybrid.
Kevin Curtis is the Distillery Operations Manager for Michter's Whiskey. This company is building a new distillery with a continuous column still. He filled me (and the audience) in on how bourbon stills work. The below post is a combination of information gleaned from distillery visits, books, and Kevin's information at Tales.
The Purpose of a Bourbon Still
As opposed to some other types of stills, for bourbon the focus is not on getting a pure alcohol out of the still. By law, bourbon must not be distilled to above 80% alcohol by volume. The focus seems to be more on the continuous and stripping nature of the column still, as opposed to a discontinuous (batch) pot still.
Scotch Vs. Bourbon Distillation
More on that: If you know about single-malt scotch whisky, you'll note that it goes through a copper pot still. However, only liquids go into the still. Grains are fermented into beer, just like in bourbon, but in scotch the solids are separated from the liquid beer before going into the pot stills. In bourbon, the solids and liquids go into the still together (in practice; there is no law about this). In a pot still, one would have to be careful that the solids didn't burn against the still, making it even harder to clean than just scooping out the leftover solids.
A bourbon column still thus performs two functions: It separates the solids from the liquids, and it separates the liquids into mostly-alcohol (to keep) and mostly-water (to recycle).
How Liquid and Steam Moves Inside a Column Still
As you probably know, a column still is filled with perforated plates. The beer to be distilled is pumped in near the top of the column (but not at the very top), and steam is pumped up from the bottom of the column. While the plates are perforated, this lets the steam come up through the still, but the beer does not drip down through these holes. Rather, the beer runs across each plate to the other side, flows down to the next plate and flow across it to the other side.
The steam coming up through the column vaporizes the alcohol from the beer (which then flows to the top of the column), while leaving the water and grain solids to keep dripping down to the bottom. (As in every still, it is tuned so that the alcohol that has a lower boiling temperature evaporates off, leaving the water with its higher boiling point behind.)
Artwork by Camper English
The Top Part of the Still
As I mentioned, the beer initially doesn't enter the very top of the still but near the top. Above that point in the still, the steam is being rectified on those plates. It is up there where copper is crucial, and where you find "bubble caps" in stills. More on those:
Column stills can be built from stainless steel but there needs to be interaction with copper at some point. In other stills (as we'll see in a future post), the part of the still where beer is being separated and distilled is stainless, and where the steam is being rectified there is copper.
Bubble caps provide additional refinement of the spirit and increase contact with copper. Some other stills (I learned this at Absolut) are filled at the top with bits of shredded copper or copper pieces that look like jacks for similar reasons.
This also makes it easier to replace the copper at the top of the still or inside the top when needed, rather than the whole still column that can last for decades.
The Doubler or Thumper in Bourbon Distillation
Most bourbon undergoes a second distillation in a continuous pot still called a doubler of a thumper. Sometimes it looks just like a regular pot still. In other distilleries, it looks just like a flat-topped metal container- you wouldn't know it's doing anything.
In a doubler, the vapor off the column still is condensed back into liquid and this is run through the pot still. In a thumper, the vapor itself goes into the still to be redistilled (and makes a thumping sound that I've never heard but I associate with the sound of radiator pipes clanging in East Coast apartment buildings).
This second distillation is needed to raise the proof of the distilled spirit a little further, and this can be done in a pot still because there are no longer any solids to worry about. The waste product of the doubler/thumper is additional water.
The only other place I can recall seeing continuous pot stills was in Jamaica for Appleton rum. According to my tour guide at Jack Daniel's, they do not run a second distillation through a thumber/doubler at all. (see comments for a dispute on this)
Update: I was given permission to post this bourbon still schematic. You'll see that the beer goes into the still at Plate 15, the new-make spirit is condensed and sent to the pot still (doubler), then recondensed before entering the High Wine Tank at the end.
Anyway, that's what I think I know about column distillation in bourbon. If you have any additional questions (or corrections!) please let me know. In future posts, we'll look at other types of column stills and see how they work.
Though I often write for DiffordsGuide.com, this time editor Ian Cameron wrote about me, or rather, my talk on water at Tales of the Cocktail.
Some of the information in the seminar you may have read here previously on Alcademics as part of the Water Project, and some information from the talk is definitely new.
This write-up is a good summary of what happened at the talk, and stay tuned for more information in greater detail here on Alcademics.
Today, Friday July 12, is the last day to purchase online tickets for Tales of the Cocktail seminars. There are still plenty of seats in my Water World: Water in Spirits and Drinks seminar, and I encourage you to attend. It's going to blow your mouth.
In today's post I will go over what we'll taste in my seminar.
1. Bowmore 12 on its own.
2. Mountain Valley Spring water (flat).
3. Perrier (sparkling) on its own.
4. Bowmore 12 with just a few drops of flat mineral water added. What flavors change or become pronounced when we do this?
5. Water with whisky added on top of it. How does this smell different from water added to whisky? This is a a demonstration of Esterification/Saponification.
6. Swirl the last two cups. Do they now smell the same?
7. Add more mineral water to whisky, up to equal parts. How does the whisky continue to change. At what point does it go flat?
8. Add Magnesium salts to mineral water and stir. What does this water taste like?
9. Add this water to Bowmore 12. What flavors does this bring out in the whisky? Are those the same flavors as were in the Magnesium water, or different?
10. Add Calcium salts to mineral water and stir. What does this water taste like?
11. Add this water to Bowmore 12. What flavors does this bring out in the whisky? Are those the same flavors as were in the Calcium water, or different?
12. Now double up on those mineral waters. What do the waters taste like with lots of minerals? Better or Worse? Add more whisky to them. Still good?
13. Add a few drops of Perrier to Bowmore 12. What does this do to the whisky?
14. Add equal parts of Perrier to Bowmore 12, as in a highball. Now how does it taste?
I've gone through this tasting at home and with a victim friend, and the results are really fascinating. The mineral makeup and total amount of minerals influences the flavor of scotch whisky (and presumably other spirits) quite dramatically.
I hope that this will cause whiksy lovers in the audience not to rethink adding water to whisky at all, but to think, "Which is the best water to add to this particular dram?"
I hope to see you at the World World seminar, taking place on July 19th at 3:30PM in New Orleans.
—
The Water Project on Alcademics is research into water in spirits and in cocktails, from the streams that feed distilleries to the soda water that dilutes your highball. For all posts in the project, visit the project index page.
In my previous experiments with making colored ice balls, I found that the color from food coloring in water didn't evenly distribute, even though it made pretty patterns.
Surprised, I froze some of my own ice balls by filling the molds with juice – I tried grape juice, cranberry juice, and Vitamin Water.
All had nice and even color distribution. So this is a good trick for adding additional flavor to cocktails that slowly infuses into the drink over time.
An index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.
In researching water in both both distilled spirits and at serving, I came across Martin Riese, a water sommelier. He is the General Manager at Ray's & Stark, a restaurant located at the LA County Museum of Art (LACMA).
He is developing a water program for the restaurant, and has his own water brand, hilariously called Beverly Hills 9OH2O.
I asked him for an email interview and he kindly consented. The interview is below, slightly modified in some places for clarity.
How did you become a water sommelier?
I had in 2005 the idea to create a water menu in the restaurant which I worked (in Germany). We had 1500 different wines and I always thought we needed to have a selection of waters to pair with the wines. The idea was a huge success, we started with 14 different waters and we ended up with over 40. I could almost not believe how different all the waters can taste and which impact they had to the wine and food experience.
The media attention which I received gave me the name of water sommelier. So, I do not have really a certification as a water sommelier but I learned learned everything during the job and during a lot of tastings and matching.
Where else are there water sommeliers in the USA?
I've known that for several years a hotel in New York had a water sommelier, but I don't know of a list or other water sommeliers who are working in the restaurant industry right now.
What will the water program be like at Ray’s & Starck?
The hardest thing right now for me is not to create the water menu, it is to get the waters into the United States. We are not talking about the regular waters which you can get in every grocery store like Voss or Fiji. I want to show my guests the variety of waters like Iskilde from Denmark, which has a very unique earth taste, or Vichy Catalan which is very salty and high in minerals.
The program at Ray's will feature around 20 different mineral waters. It will be not a regular list; it will be more like a small book with a lot of information. Every water will get one whole page with a picture of the bottle, the mineral content, a small chart how the water will taste,; and a story about the water, where the spring is and why the water is so unique.
I read the book Fine Waters [read about that here and here and here]. Do you categorize water in the same way as the author Michael Mascha? What do you do or how do you think differently than he does?
I highly respect Michael Mascha. He was one of the first ones here in America who realized how important is to drink the right water. And exactly that is the challenge here in America. For 99 percent of Americans, is water just water. In Europe people have a different background on the topic water. Just in Germany we have over 580 different water brands. People are very aware of the difference in water.
In America most of the time guests order tap water, with ice and lemon. Here in Los Angeles, tap water is filtered so the mineral content is very low, and chlorine is added for sanitary reasons. Imagine now you enjoying a great red wine with a good amount of tannins. The chlorine of the tap water will overpower the fruit nuances, the extremely chilled-down water will completely ruin your experience, and the acidity of the lemon is not pairing with the tannins of the red wine.
I like to help my guests and it is amazing for me to see how wines and spirits can change by just the right water which you are drinking beside it.
I’m concerned more with water and spirits more than water and food pairings. Have you explored that very much?
My main focus was always pairing water with food and wines. When I started at Ray's & Stark Bar I met Paul Sanguinetti my mixologist (and the restaurant's sommelier). It was amazing that we both shared the same ideas and it was amazing for me to explore the different waters with different spirits.
Some distillers say that you should serve/dilute whisky only with low or medium TDS (totally dissolved solids, the mineral content) levels. In Fine Waters, he also recommends staying away from high TDS waters with mixed drinks. Why is that?
I agree for whisky. High TDS waters have a very strong own taste, they can be almost salty. You want to enjoy the original taste of the whisky and you do not want to alienate the taste with the high minerals.
But in mixed drinks it can be very interesting and I think there is a lot to explore for the bartenders and mixologists here in LA. The taste of water can be used to bring the cocktail to the next level. For example, the same cocktail made with a low mineral water will be more likely smooth, with a high mineral water you will add some spice to it.
I am always giving the example of the movie Ratatouille, where the rat is explaining the different taste with colors. One mineral has the color red, the other green, add the different taste of the spirits, like blue and yellow, together it can become a firework. But be careful, by adding to many colors (different tastes), the colors are not bright any more .
Do you have an opinion on ideal brands (or styles) of water for drinks such as the Scotch and Soda? Vodka Soda?
Lots of people think that mineral water is automatically soda water. That is not true, mineral water can be still or with carbonation. Soda water is a water which has a high content of CO2, and that is exactly the most important thing for mixing it with drinks.
When you would use a mineral water which has a medium content of CO2, the mixed drink would not have enough carbonation. I think every single bartender should choose his favorite brand. Just do the test, buy several soda waters , taste them by themselves and then make the same cocktail with different soda waters. For sure every single bartender will find the right soda water for there concept.
I prefer a water with a medium mineral content, to give the drinks some support, but every bar should do a tasting and they will come up with the 'right" water.
I’ve been playing around with individual components of mineral waters. I’m wondering if you have tasting notes for individual mineral salts in water: sodium, calcium, magnesium, potassium, etc. Or have feelings about waters that contain a lot of any one of them.
The mix of different minerals in each water is interesting. That's the reason water has such a big variety from salty to smooth, from bitter to sweet. Just minerals by themselves have following tastes:
Sodium = salty Calcium = bitter, sour – actually calcium has his own taste which scientist discovered several years ago Magnesium = slightly bitter Potassium = salty – sour
Photo by Sven Doornkaat. Property of Martin Riese
Beverly Hills 90H2O
I asked Riese for information about his water brand. The below is from the press release with additional info from Riese.
PH 7.5 TDS 390
Actually that is the amazing thing, when you drink the water it feels like a very low mineral water, but it has a good amount of minerals to be the perfect match with good wines, spirits and food
Beverly Hills 9OH2O, World’s First Sommelier-Crafted Water, Launched Globally
Inspired by the crafting of champagne and fine spirits, a team of fine dining experts led by the world's preeminent water sommelier Martin Riese has created Beverly Hills 9OH2O, the world’s first sommelier-crafted water.
Pristine spring water from the Northern California Mountains is crafted with natural minerals using a proprietary patent-pending formula. It is designed to have the ultimate taste profile, and is best enjoyed gently chilled to 59°F. The resulting masterpiece is alkaline, highly balanced, and the perfect pairing to fine foods and wines.
Beverly Hills 9OH2O is made available in limited editions of 10,000 individually numbered glass bottles. Each edition features unique custom art, making every bottle also a highly desirable gift and prized collectable.
The water is available for purchase online for the rate of $164 for a 12-bottle case of liters.
—
The Water Project on Alcademics is research into water in spirits and in cocktails, from the streams that feed distilleries to the soda water that dilutes your highball. For all posts in the project, visit the project index page.
Back in April I visited the Fernet-Branca distillery outside of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Some of you may remember me tweeting about it. Well, it's about time I gave it the formal write-up.
Fernet-Branca owns two distilleries: the main one in Milan, Italy, and this one in Buenos Aires. In past years there used to be many Branca distilleries in different countries (including the US), but as global shipping has become easier this model makes the most sense.
Production began in Argentina around 1905 or 1908 and has continued ever since. The current distillery was built in 2000 and it already at full capacity.
Surprisingly, the Fernet-Branca we drink in the US is made in Milan. The Fernet-Branca made in Buenos Aires is consumed mostly in Argentina but also South/Latin America.
I didn't directly ask if the Fernet-Branca made in Buenos Aires is made to the exact same recipe, but if you compare them side-by-side you can tell it is not. The stuff made for the local market is less sweet than the international version (makes sense given that they always drink it with Coke, never on its own), and some bitter elements seemed to be different in a way I can't describe. Also, the proof was different than the international version but I believe recently has changed to conform with the Italian one.
They do, however, willingly admit that they use only three different ingredients than in Italy: The base alcohol is a local 95% ABV sugar cane distillate, and the sugar cane is local as well. The water is also local, coming from an underground river in the area. Another local ingredient used is chamomile, but the same flower is exported from here to be used in the Italian production as well.
Unfortunately pictures were not allowed in the distillery, so below is the verbal tour. I should also note that this is not a distillery at all: the base alcohol is distilled elsewhere. This is the blending and aging facility, but to make it easy I'll just call it a distillery.
Herbs and Spices
The first room we passed had the smell of caramel, and in fact that's where they were making the carmel coloring for Fernet, which they appeared to be doing by heating and stirring sugar in big tubs.
Most of the work in making Fernet-Branca is doing tons of separate infusions and macerations to get the flavor from the herbs, barks, roots, and spices into the spirit. Thus, the rooms that we walked through were full of different types of stainless steel tanks of a wide variety of shapes and sizes.
Some were small simple tanks, some were huge vats, some had stirrers and filters on them; some were sideways roller tanks that slowly rotate. Our guide told us that some ingredients are infused into alcohol; others into water. Some infuse separately; other ingredients are combined.
The longest infusion of any ingredient in Fernet-Branca is for 90 days, but our guide couldn't say which ingredient that was. We saw piles of burlap bags of chamomile, zedoria, and other spices from India, Spain, Africa, and Iran stacked in different rooms. Other herbs are kept in a refrigerated room. They store 2 years' worth of ingredients just in case there are any supply chain problems down the road.
Aging Fernet
Beneath the factory is a huge basement that stores tanks for aging Fernet-Branca. There are six cellars, plus two additional climate-controlled warehouses. These are full of gigantic wooden vats (one of them holds 100,000 liters!) aging the liqueur. Two of the smallest vats at the distillery date back to around 1908 and were used at the Italian distillery before being sent to Argentina.
Each tank ages separately, but before bottling they pour the Fernet-Branca into one tank that is connected to a series of other tanks by tubes. They only draw the finished product out of the last tank, so this is a way to marry and blend a great quantity of the Branca for consistency.
Production
The factory is running at full capacity making 4 million cases every year, and presently and they are expanding to double that over the next few years.
They also make Branda Menta here, Punt E Mes, and they bottle Borghetti coffee liqueur.
Drinking Fernet-Branca, Argentinean-Style
Mix it with Coke. They never drink Fernet-Branca on its own; I'd hazard a guess to say that almost nobody has ever even tried it neat there.
It's funny that to us Fernet and Coke sounds repulsive (while to them drinking Fernet-Branca neat sounds like drinking radiator fluid), yet it's not actually that bad. They seem to treat it like an everyday cocktail like a Gin & Tonic, but I actually didn't mind it as a digestif after a meal.
Bowmore's master blender Rachel Barrie recently performed a similar experiment, though she didn't name the source of the waters. But it turns out they were pretty similar to the waters I tasted, and her results echoed my own. I love not being totally wrong.
But the truly exciting thing is if we combine the results of her tasting with what I've learned about regional waters of Scotland, we see that the water from certain regions of Scotland, when added to whisky, seems to bring out specific taste qualities in the whisky for which those regions are known.
In other words, if you dilute a whisky with water from Islay (or in the style of Islay water based on mineral content and pH), it seems to emphasize Islay-ish flavor notes in the whisky, no matter where that whisky is from.
Okay, let's get started. First lets see how Barrie's waters compared to the ones I tasted from UisgeSource.
Highland Water: hard water, high in minerals. 225 parts per million dissolved solids and high in nitrate, calcium, and magnesium. pH around 7.7 (lightly alkaline)
Mineral-rich, with above average concentrations of Calcium and Magnesium minerals, high hardness and an elevated pH of 8.
Speyside Water: soft water, low in minerals. 125 ppm dissolved solids. pH around 7.8 (lightly alkaline)
Soft water with low conductivity, hardness, minerals and polarity with pH 7.
Islay Water: higher natural acidity. 183 ppm TDS. pH around 6.3. High in sulphate, potassium, sodium, and chloride.
Acidic water with higher Sodium chloride and Potassium sulphate, lower Calcium and Magnesium and pH 6-7.
As you can see, the waters we each tasted were pretty similar to each other. The only not-major difference was that the pH of Barrie's low-mineral water was more neutral than the water I tried. So I think it's fair to say that we tasted basically the same style of water.
Now lets compare tasting notes, taking into account that Barrie is the Master Blender and the expert at this, while I'm just making stuff up as I go. Barrie noted that she didn't expect the subtle tastes in the water to bring out dramatic tastes in the whisky, but it did. They conducted a blind tasting with equal parts whisky and water.
UisgeSource Water- My Tasting Notes
Rachel Barrie's Water- Her Tasting Notes with Bowmore 12
Highland Water: The Highland water brought out honey notes from whiskies.
The mineral-rich water unlocked additional layers of floral, herbal and peaty notes on the nose, and provided a more intense and intriguing textural experience (chalky minerality) on the tongue.
Speyside Water: The Speyside water made both the Islay and Highland whisky taste sweet.
The soft water brought out more of the sweet honeyed and citrus fruit notes, and delivered a softer, sweeter and smooth rounded taste experience.
Islay Water: The Islay water brought out the creme brulee and smoke.
The acidic water brought out more peppery peat, iodine and brine with unripe fruits and cereal notes.
While our notes don't agree entirely, we each found that Speyside water brings out sweetness, while Islay water brings out Islay-specific flavor notes like peat, smoke, iodine, and brine.
I've always been skeptical about the bourbon-and-branch concept of pairing a whisky with the water from the same source. In the process of distillation, nearly all of the source water is removed from the spirit, and then it is diluted with purified (usually municipal) water. There is hardly any branch water in a finished whisky, so why bother going through the effort of pairing it?
But yet, if we look at the results of the experiment above, Barrie's tasting notes for what the water brings out in the whisky are pretty similar to the generic tasting notes for whiskies from those regions:
Tasting Notes for Regional Whiskies, from a story I wrote for Imbibe Magazine a few years ago
Rachel Barrie's Water- Her Tasting Notes
Highland Whisky: these whiskies tend to yield a light smoke/peat element and flavors ranging from heathery and spicy to fruity
The mineral-rich water unlocked additional layers of floral, herbal and peaty notes on the nose, and provided a more intense and intriguing textural experience (chalky minerality) on the tongue.
The soft water brought out more of the sweet honeyed and citrus fruit notes, and delivered a softer, sweeter and smooth rounded taste experience.
Islay Whisky: pungent with peat smoke, iodine, and brine flavors
The acidic water brought out more peppery peat, iodine and brine with unripe fruits and cereal notes.
Isn't that awesome? Turns out there just might be something to all that bourbon-and-branch stuff after all.
Note that Barrie wasn't trying to gauge the "best" water to pair with Bowmore. She writes, "Which water and Bowmore combination you will prefer is all down to personal taste. If you prefer a sweeter honeyed taste, adding soft water may be preferred. However, if you prefer the drier/briney tastes in Bowmore, a slightly acidic water (such as the water sourced locally on Islay) may be preferred." Read Rachel Barrie's full experiment and thorough tasting notes here.
This experiment deserves more testing. Here are some projects you and I might try to validate this experiment and take it further:
Survey the scotch whisky producers for more information on their waters. As I wrote previously, even distilleries close to each other may have very different water sources.
Try whisky from each region paired with water from each region. In my experiment, I tried both Highland and Islay whisky and found the waters brought out the same notes in each, but it's worth trying all three of these regions.
Try this with waters from the Lowlands of Scotland, and Kentucky and Japan with those whiskies.
Find commercially-available bottled water that has the same or similar properties to the waters from each of these regions. (I'll get on this one right away.) If I can't find them, I may need to make them myself with what I've learned about creatingmineralwater.
Then repeat this experiment with those waters to see if it still works.
So, yeah, awesome!
—
The Water Project on Alcademics is research into water in spirits and in cocktails, from the streams that feed distilleries to the soda water that dilutes your highball. For all posts in the project, visit the project index page.
Last year I had the pleasure of visiting the Noilly Prat vermoutherie in Marseillan, France, where I learned about how it is made. 
