According to some scotch whisky connoiseurs scotch is best taken with just a few drops of water to help "release" the full flavor, preferably with water from the same source as was used to steep the original barley in for distilling. For instance, Aberlour (which literally means mouth of the Aber river---where the actual distillery is sited) is distilled using water from that springfed river, and the Aberlour folks on their tour will provide you with Aber spring water to both rinse your palate between tastings as well as to add a touch to "release" the flavor.

There is a famous little whisky shop in the grampian highlands not far from a bunch of the speyside whisky distilleries called the Whisky Castle, and the proprietor there has literally hundreds of whiskies, mostly specialty bottlings, on his shelves. But he also has dozens of bottles of water behind the counter that he uses to "release" the flavors of those he lets you do tastings of before buying.

Personally I am not a believer in this theory as from a physics standpoint it really makes no sense to me (all you are doing is diluting the whisky slightly, which might make it a wee bit more palatable to some, thus the likely effect rather than any "release"). I also am starting to lean toward some of the special bottlings of whiskys by middlemen who are allowed to sample single barrels of certain batches to find something special they like, then they buy several barrels and do limited bottlings of it, usually at cask strength (sometimes as high as 62% alcohol by volume) rather than the usual 40-43% of mass produced (which is usually diluted down from its production 50-60%) for consistency sake. Once you have tasted cask strength, if you like it, it is hard to go back to mass bottled stuff. You never really know what you are getting as each bottling will have extremely unique flavours, but virtually all of them I've tasted so far have been very enjoyable, amazingly flavorful and rich compared to the mass bottlings. But also be prepared to pay a premium price for them too, and unfortunately this is usually what scares folks off from them---paying a decent amount of money for something you have never tasted and are not sure you will like.