Does bottled liquor get better with age

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I was cleaning out part of my grandparents' house, emptying some bottles of liquor slightly older than I am. Everything had been opened, except for a bottle of Weller's (Special Reserve), which still had the tax paid sticker from 1979. It was eight years old at the time, making it a ripe 32-year bourbon.

What are the odds on it still being drinkable?

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Sunday, 21 September 2003 07:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Though some things get better with age there are certainly some things that don't.

― chilbain6, Sunday, 21 September 2003 08:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Bottled spirits don't generally age as they do in the barrel or as wines do i'm afraid. No harm in drinking it though.

― Ed (dali), Sunday, 21 September 2003 11:54 (twenty-two years ago)

No matter what the spirit is, once you open the bottle, it begins to go, much the way 2 litre bottles of Coca-Cola do. There do exist methods of sealing wine bottles for longer keeping, but even then it cannot be held indefinitely. Drinking your old stuff won't cause you food poisoning or anything, but it certainly will not have improved any.

― Nicholas, Sunday, 21 September 2003 17:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Ed is right. No spirit, to my knowledge, continues to age once it is out of the cask and in the bottle. Thus, that 8 year old bourbon is still, technically, only 8 years old, as the "aging" from which it's flavor is acquired occurs only in the charred oak barrels it was originally in. While your bottle should still be fully drinkable, don't expect it to be any more notable for its age. On the other hand, it may taste a bit different (though probably not discernably so) simply due to the environmental (climatic, soil, water) conditions it was made under lo those many years ago. But that's just guesswork.

Bottoms up!

― Grandin (Grandin), Sunday, 21 September 2003 18:37 (twenty-two years ago)

there is a shop in Cowley Road, Oxford which sells cheap beer. It is also all past its best before date! The fact that beer has sell by dates implies that it does not improve with age.

― MarkH (MarkH), Monday, 22 September 2003 06:24 (twenty-two years ago)

I seem to remember seeing a test done on this on the telly which showed that wine deteriorates in a matter of days when opened, single malt whisky doesn't get any better or worse, but blended whisky actually improves with age (up to a point, obviously).

The 32 year old bourbon will make a nice conversation piece but not a lot else, I'd imagine :)

― Mark C (Mark C), Monday, 22 September 2003 09:33 (twenty-two years ago)

"The oldest bottle of wine ever to be sold at auction was a bottle of 1646 imperial Tokay, which was bought by John A. Chunko of Princeton, New Jersey, USA, and Jay Walker of Ridgefield, Connecticut, USA for the sum of S Fr1,250 (including buyers premium) at Sotheby's, Geneva, Switzerland, on Nov 16, 1984. At the time the sum paid was equivalent to £405."

Tokaji bigs itself up

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 22 September 2003 09:58 (twenty-two years ago)

A lot of canned food has sell by dates on it just to chivvy the foolish shop owners into throwing it out and buying more. A can of beans has a shelf life of well over twenty years, these days we are offered but two.

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 22 September 2003 10:30 (twenty-two years ago)

who would you prefer to believe, iceland sales dept or john a. chunko?

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 22 September 2003 10:32 (twenty-two years ago)

there is a shop in Cowley Road, Oxford which sells cheap beer. It is also all past its best before date! The fact that beer has sell by dates implies that it does not improve with age.

the most drunk i ever got was about 8 years ago when a friend of mine and myself were totally skint, so bought 4 cans of slightly out of date tennents super with 12.5% per cent extra free per can each, bunged in the freezer to kill the foul taste and drank them all in under an hour. when i realsied the next day that what i had done was roughly equivalent to drinking 10 pints of stella in 45 minutes, i realised why.

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Monday, 22 September 2003 10:33 (twenty-two years ago)

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