The idea of a summer drink without ice is as perplexing as the wall of drinks at QuikTrip. Vanilla or Cherry flavor shot? What the heck is a Rooster Booster? QT itself has made it clear you're supposed to use ice, offering two kinds for those staggering in from the heat.
But there might be one exception to the rule, and that, fellow drinkers, is Scotch whisky. Forget flavor shots -- the dividing line among whiskey enthusiasts is one drawn in water. Recently the Daily Dust highlighted the Island of Jura distillery's attempt to answer the question of whether Scotch whisky should be drunk sans accompaniment or on the rocks with a splash of water.
We've come a long way from the Scotch Neat -- the two words that meant, simply, give me a whiskey without any mixers. Now your favorite whiskey cocktail
likely lies somewhere between a Brooklyn (rye, vermouth and maraschino
liqueur) and a Millionaire (bourbon, whiskey, orange Curacao, grenadine,
framboise and the white of an egg).
It's easy to understand a strong stance on ice if you're presented with a few precious drips of The Last Drop's $2,000 whiskey
or you believe every time you add a splash of water to whiskey, another
distiller dies. Then you'll likely appreciate the words of Isla of Jura distillery master blender Richard Paterson:
For years
I've been forced to stand by and watch as barroom dandies sully the
world's greatest drink with a range of inappropriate mixers and
sacrilegious frills, but enough is enough.
But let's say you're one of those barroom dandies taking a floater on a Japanese whiskey. You might be in the camp of Colin Field, who has the delightful title
of head barman at the Ritz Carlton in Paris, France, and thinks that
ice is merely one of the ingredients in the next best whiskey cocktail.
Pitting a master blender against a master mixer is like watching professional eater Kobayashi battle a bear in a hot dog eating race -- you can't help but appreciate the efforts of both competitors.
With
no clear winner, this is a debate that can
only be settled through a series of long, slow sips. And you don't have
to go all the way to Scotland (or Japan) to begin your research. Instead, you can start with a series of American whiskeys.
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