Cocktails with Boiling water
Boiling water is plain water heated to its boiling point — about 100 °C (212 °F) at sea level.
Substitutes for Boiling water
Any drinkable water freshly boiled does the same thing, since the heat and the dilution are the ingredient and the water is not. A cold drink has no use for it: there the ice or a measure of cold water does the diluting.
Often confused with
Hot water
A recipe saying hot water usually means heated and not boiling, somewhere near 80 °C. For whisky and honey that is the better temperature, and the difference is easy to hear in the glass.
Boiling water at altitude
Water boils cooler as you climb, near 90 °C at 2,000 meters. A toddy built high up is genuinely less hot, and steeping times for tea or spice run longer to compensate.
Storage
Boil it fresh each time. Water reboiled over and over tastes flat because the dissolved air has gone out of it, and in a two-ingredient drink that flatness is audible.
