They do. Though what is the preferred mixed strength is highly subjective and so many whisky drinkers will buy “cask strength”, which is >60% ABV vs the 40% you

They do. Though what is the preferred mixed strength is highly subjective and so many whisky drinkers will buy “cask strength”, which is >60% ABV vs the 40% you’ll find in the ones people will often put with mixers. And then water it down to the strength they prefer. The act of adding the water itself will provide a different experience given the way it interacts with the volatile compounds as it’s mixing. So a whisky you water down yourself to 40% (not that you’re accurately measuring that at the time) will have a different nose and palette to one that came pre-bottled at 40%. Some people have a preference for cask strength mostly for the snobbery of it. Others prefer the higher ABV if you’re drinking it neat (or near neat) and the fact it’s more true to what came out the cask (I had a >80% rum from the SMWS once that was incredible). I preferred it mostly because it felt like better value; you tweak the water levels and it’s like you’ve got a dozen or more different whiskies to experiences in the one bottle. Maybe even the one glass if you’re adding incrementally as you drink. Adding ice is more commonly frowned upon for all of the opposite reasons to the above. The cold shuts down the volatile compounds, and it dilutes the whisky (and thus changes it) in a way you have very little control over. That said, on a hot night or even just in front of a roaring fire there can be something exciting about that too. The only wrong thing would be to say “true scotch drinkers don’t do X”. There’s no more appropriate place to invoke the No True Scotsman fallacy.