Elevating whiskey service

Not all spirits have special rituals or eccentric tools for heightening their enjoyment, but whiskey has a handful of ways. Some easy, some expensive, and some that just take advanced preparation.

The easiest and most expensive way to elevate a guest’s whiskey experience is to buy them a more expensive whiskey. They’ve got a glass of the 12 Year Old? Maybe you whisper, “if you want to spoil yourself with the 25 Year Old, we can squeeze it in the budget.” Now, you should probably find out what they were already drinking and a recommendation or two from the bartender as to what is similar but a step up in price, and find a convenient time to offer that to the guest. If you know there’s no clear path to hitting your F&B minimum for the night, offering the whiskey drinker the chance to taste something really special will go a long way. Do be careful: whiskies can get very expensive, very fast as you climb the aging ladder, so if you have a guest asking if they can try the 30YO or 40YO, you can be looking at 100s of dollars for a single pour. Likely the most expensive method, but requires no advanced preparation other than a quick chat with the bartender once you know what the guest is thinking.

Spherical ice, or “ice balls,” are another nice touch.

At this point, spherical ice is not novel — they were introduced into the mainstream U.S. market around 2010 when Macallan went on the road with an ice ball press. But even though it’s not novel, it’s far from ubiquitous.

You’ve surely seen craft cocktail bars with giant ice, often in the shape of squares. Spherical ice takes it to the next level because, according to physics, the shape of the ice will cause it to melt more slowly in the glass than a similarly sized square of ice. The reason this is useful for whiskey is that a little bit of water in a Scotch is often recommended, you don’t want so much that it dilutes the whiskey.

Traveling with an ice press is impractical, so you’re at the mercy of the bar & restaurant where you’re hosting the dinner, but it may be worth an ask to see if it’s something they offer.

If you really, really, really want to go over the top with spherical ice, well, then you’d hire someone that can hand carve it in front of your guests.

Since we’re on the topic of adding whiskey to water, this is my favorite idea because of how rare it is to see, and because it can also act as a souvenir for the guest. I’m talking, of course, about a glass or crystal pipette.

Once you realize a little bit of water in whiskey is a good thing, then the question becomes: how best to get just a little bit of water into one’s whiskey? Pouring it from a water glass is a bad answer. A glass or crystal pipette is the answer your whiskey-drinking prospect may not have even knew existed.

Glencairn Crystal Studio makes a perfectly suitable one for just $15. The Angels’ Share Glass Co. in Scotland makes beautiful droppers for $40. Norlan, maker of all sorts of futuristic whiskey gifts, offers an anodized aluminum one for just $50.

But if you want to offer your guest the turnkey water dropping solution, Glencairn Crystal Studio sells a cool Pipette Bundle Gift Set that has a tiny jug for water, their infamous Glencairn whiskey tasting glass, and a glass pipette, all for just $41.00 at the time of this writing. And, if you think you’ll be giving it out often, they can engrave the glassware with your company or event logo.

Imagine the look on your guest’s face when you bring them a small glass of water and pull a glass pipette out of your pocket so that they can properly regulate the amount of water they add to their whiskey.

Yours truly back in 2014 chainsawing a block of ice to prepare ice balls for the bar at Wingtip.