Bad news about the Bell's Palsy but really great news that it wasn't a stroke Mike.
Al has good advice about checking out some of the long drinks in your new reference work.
I also fail to see how Alex can be unaware of this and yet he chooses to associate himself with him. Rightly or wrongly this has an effect on my perceptions of him. The physics of business stuff on his web site seems a bit slithery IMO but I'm willing to let someone convince me it is not just BS.
Branch water is technically the same water used to bring the Bourbon to proof. In reality any filtered water should work fine as the goal is to not change the character of the Bourbon. You are only supposed to use a splash.
Well my experience with Yama's is nonexistent. I tried contacting them three different times for three different issues by email with absolutely no response. None of them were earth shatteringly important so I did not try any other means of contact. This was I believe between about 2006 and 2008.