Which water goes best with whisky?

Peaty water ought to be classed as a luxury. You have spent a day on the hill, a’chasing the deer. This means coping with the rigours of topography, the cunning of the quarry and the vindictiveness of the elements, though that has its compensations. Rain keeps away the midges. You arrive back damp and knackered, but there is an instant restorative: a bathful of broiling peaty water, with a glass of peaty whisky as a chaser. Suddenly, all the day’s hardships are sublimated into pure pleasure (especially if you have killed a beast).

Naturally, the water is brown. This can give rise to misunderstandings among the ignorant. A girl I know owns a shooting lodge. Once, towards the end of breakfast, someone from the kitchen team informed her that there was no hot water. She was bewildered; her boiler would power a fair-sized boat a long way into the Atlantic. The explanation promptly arrived, in the form of a lawyer guest wearing an Armani dressing-gown, Gucci slippers and silk pyjamas. ‘Janey, darling: there’s something wrong with your plumbing. I’ve been trying to run a bath for an hour and a half, but the water’s still brown.’ He was lucky not to have been chased down the drive by an enraged hostess with a horsewhip.

These and other stories came to mind during a recent session at Boisdale, one of this column’s favourite restaurants. We had assembled to taste — waters. There has always been a vigorous intellectual debate about whisky and water. For years, I took the view that serious Scotch should not be adulterated. After all, who would dream of putting water into good Cognac or Armagnac?

But I have been persuaded that a little water releases the flavours. It is also essential to mitigate the awesome power of cask-strength malts.