In this series of posts on optical rotations, I firstly noted Kirkwood’s 1937 attempt to correlate the optical rotation of butan-2-ol with its absolute configuration. He had identified as essential knowing the relative orientation (the term conformation was not yet in common use) of the two methyl groups (the modern terms are gauche vs anti) and also that of the hydroxyl group, noting that anisotropy from this group could influence his result (he had assumed it was linear, or axially symmetric). I then looked at D-(+)-glyceraldehyde, noting that this species itself has a strongly negative rotation and that it is the hydrated diol that results in a positive rotation and hence the (+) designation. Here I take another look at this latter system to see what effect adding explicit water molecules to the unhydrated form of glyceraldehyde might have on its computed rotation, on the premise that strong hydrogen bonds can also contribute anisotropy to the system.