How do whiskey rocks work

Dave Arnold, a mixologist and Director of Culinary Technology at the French Culinary Institute describes what he calls the fundamental rule of cocktails in his book, Liquid Intelligence: The Art and Science of the Perfect Cocktail: "There is no chilling without dilution, and no dilution without chilling.

Conversely, the only way ice can melt is if it chills your drink. The fact is, Arnold explains, nothing cools a drink as well as ice. Ice doesn't simply cool the liquid around it by contact. Instead, chilling involves a transfer of energy between the whiskey and the ice. The ice cube absorbs some of the heat from the whiskey , which causes its surface to come above freezing temperature, and thus to melt. The melted ice then cools the whiskey. Since the whiskey stone can't melt, when it takes on the heat and energy of the whiskey, it will get warmer.

So, it will chill the drink a bit at first, but eventually the stone will get warmer and stop effectively chilling the drink. They just warm up. The second claim is that stones prevent dilution. This is true. And is also true of reusable ice cubes , which are loads more effective than stones, provided you can bear to watch them float around at the top of your drink like a bad drink umbrella. This is also sometimes a bad thing.

If you are a true whiskey snob , you drink your whiskey at room temperature chilled drinks lessen the effectiveness of your taste buds and olfactory senses and you drink it with a water dropper. You sip, you take notes, you add a drop of water, you repeat. It takes the fun out of drinking, but it illustrates a point: even experts dilute their drink. The recent trend of high-ABV bourbons hitting the market comes from bartenders demanding higher proofs that they can dilute with mixers while still maintaining high alcohol content.

So dilution is sometimes good. And if you really hate dilution but really want cold drinks, your best bet is an ice sphere. What are Whisky Stones? May 3, Whisky is one of those drinks that can be enjoyed both by its self, and on the rocks. The trouble is that the taste of whisky changes significantly when you add water to it.

How they work? How much do whisky stones cost?