[Avodah] Selling whiskey/bourbon

[Simon Montagu]

On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 6:25 AM, Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 2:42am Pacific ("besof maarav"?) time, R Simon
>
> Montagu wrote:

Irrelevant aside: I am in fact in EY, but I keep my laptop clock on
Pacific time for convenience of reference because I work remotely with
a company in California, so don't be alarmed if messages appear me
from with a datestamp that seems to imply they were sent on Shabbat.

Back in the day when I was living and working in CA, I had "libi
bemizrah va'ani besof ma`arav pinned up in my cube.

>
> : Does adding water to liquid chametz make it a taaroves?  Scotch whisky has
> : water added when it's bottled.
> : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch_whisky#Bottling says that cask strength
> : is 50%-60% alcohol while bottled whisky is normally 40%-46%. If my math is
> : right, that would mean that anything between 8% and 33% of the bottle would
> : be water.
>
> Im kein ein ladavar sof: Those two are done years apart. But what if they
> were minutes apart? Simple solution to making peas for Ashkenazim. Put
> up the peas, and some point during cooking, add more water.

I don't follow this at all. Which "two" are done years apart and why
should that make a difference? As long as the taarovet itself is made
before Pesach, who cares how many years the chametz existed as chametz
before that (assuming that it wasn't owned by a Jew during Pesach in
the years when it was in the cask).

The peas case is completely different because there you have discrete
solids floating around in water. My question is only about adding
water to chametz when *the chametz itself* is in liquid form.
Personally I doubt that water alone makes a taarovet, but what about
other liquids with a noticable taste? (I'm thinking of things like
Bailey's Irish Cream, if there are any kosher versions of that)