I don't want my ice in berg form...

[wolfie]

Whiskey stones cannot get cold enough, and are incapable of providing the dilution necessary for a properly balanced drink.

Some would take that as a challenge. While it's out of the reach of a household freezer, whiskey stones can get cold enough to freeze a shot of spirits solid (now where did I put that liquid helium?). As for the dilution, only a sassenach (my mother's mother was a Highland Scot - for anyone who doesn't recognize the word, it's NOT something you want to call a Scot) would deliberately dilute their whiskey.

[lordlundar]

There's another issue with those whiskey stones. Ice acts a thermal diffuser, where when it melts it also transfers a higher thermal capacity into the drink itself so long as there's an abundance of ice so it aids in lowering the temperature. Whiskey stones and the metal blocks act as a thermal capacitor. All the heat from the drink simply goes into the stones then the heat from the air goes into the drink. This makes them horribly inefficient and ineffective in their purpose.

As for the frozen juice in the punch, what I mean by a "proper punch" is the original definition of a punch which is comprised of:

1 part sour ingredient
2 parts sweet ingredient
3 parts strong (alcoholic) ingredient
4 parts weak (essentially filler) ingredient
+ spice

So while frozen fruit juice (ideally what you would be using for the "weak" ingredient) is a better choice, you're still diluting the punch, just with a more preferable option.

[KiaKat]

Some would take that as a challenge. While it's out of the reach of a household freezer, whiskey stones can get cold enough to freeze a shot of spirits solid (now where did I put that liquid helium?). As for the dilution, only a sassenach (my mother's mother was a Highland Scot - for anyone who doesn't recognize the word, it's NOT something you want to call a Scot) would deliberately dilute their whiskey.

Most Scotch, until recent years, was bottled at about standard proof: 80. The higher the proof, the less dilution by the distiller at the point of bottling. Cask proof is usually in the realm of 120-125, which means distillers were diluting at around 20%.

With the emergence of American bourbon onto the world market, Scotch producers started doing things differently. They recognized that consumers wanted something with a higher concentration of flavour as well as a darker colour (various reasons, including the type of casks used, contribute to the colour of American whiskies). They started adjusting their methods in order to adapt; adding caramel coloring in order to darken the final product, less dilution, and different types of casks for the final year of aging. This created the current trend of Sherry and Port finished Scotches.

Modern Scotch is a different animal from the products of a century or two ago. And, as a result, the ways of drinking it have changed.

(This lecture brought to you by nearly a decade in the business and far too much time reading.)