[Avodah] Selling whiskey/bourbon

[Simon Montagu]

On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 2:14 PM, Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 01:01:06PM -0700, Simon Montagu wrote:
> : > 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 mash was made before aging, I presume years before the water was
> added a second time.
>
> The question is whether it's taaroves at all, not whether the taaroves
> needs to be before or even during Pesach.

Ah, I understand the confusion: you're conflating two questions into
one. I completely agree with you that any water added before the
fermentation and distillation is not going to make a taarovet.
Certainly im ken ein ladavar sof: even bread is made by mixing water,
flour and yeast together so there would be no such thing in the world
as chametz gamur!

My question was intended as completely separate: assuming that the
distilled whisky is still chametz gamur, would the water added during
bottling make it a taarovet from that point onwards? As I said in my
last message, I expect the answer is still "no".