Once I had a dram from a bottle of whisky that (I was told) had been in the guy’s grandfather’s basement for 50+ years, and it was fine. Pretty good, actually. Can’t recall what it was.
I’ve also had the experience of trying to open a bottle of scotch after a mere 10 or so years and encountering a desiccated, crumbling cork, so be careful not to get that shit in your drink.
(I forgot)
Back when I drank, Old Grandad BiB was one of my favorite everyday whiskeys. Of course, my tastes are different: I love high rye bourbon and dislike the sweeter wheated ones.
When my father passed away, I took over the contents of his liquor shelf in the closet. He hadn’t drinken in about 25 years and there were many half-finished bottles right where he left them. They were fine except for the gin; he used the bottle for his moonshine, and it still had a kick and was flammable.
I’ve bought many an old bottle at auctions and estate sales, some of which was high end stuff that I got for cheap. In general, it was still good, only had only found one that tasted off to me and I spit it out and poured it down the drain. There were some where the cork had dried up and allowed some evaporation, in those instances I believe that the evaporation may have made them stronger proof, but I have no cite to back that up.
I’ve stumbled across 25-30 year old whiskey that I drank, never thinking twice. It was fine.
Sidecars are made with brandy not whisky.
There was a CBS Sunday Morning Show piece a year or two ago about vintage liquors. Found it: Ah jeez, it’s from 5 years ago? Wow, the piece itself is becoming vintage (as am I).
Apparently very old liquors, opened and not, have become valuable collectibles among certain circles. There’s a bar in New York where you can buy a martini made from 1906 vermouth and turn-of-the-century gin for $600 (probably more like $1000 now). A guy made a big score finding a case of Prohibition-era Gibley’s gin in the attic of his circa 1926 house (personally I would never drink Prohibition-era booze- I enjoy my eyesight too much).
So the OP may want to keep that inherited booze around as an investment!
Yes! And it doesn’t have to be as old as you’d think to have some significant value. Bourbons and ryes from as recent as the 70s and 80s are often in high demand. The sales of brown liquors fell off a cliff in the late 60s if I remember my dates right.
Because of the extremely long lead time to produced an aged whiskey, and because the distillers were slow to respond to the change in demand, barrel after barrel went into the rickhouses with no obvious demand. So they sat, aged longer than normal, and because bottling lines ran at such a reduced volume, only the best stuff made it out to market. Anything else was redistilled into neutral spirits.
Also, unlike today, the distillers didn’t yet have the idea to spin off numerous fake brands, subdividing their best barrels into premium, ultra-premium and ultra-stupid-premium bottlings while the main lines got what would have been burned off before. So today, Old Granddad BiB (while still a personal favorite) doesn’t get the best of what Beam produces, but back before about 1990 OGD bottles contained the best that National Distillers made. Often aged double or more of what the age statement on the label claimed.
The rest of the spirits market didn’t quite go through the same depression, but there certainly is the feeling that during the corporate consolidation era of the 90’s, many liqueur and spirits brands began to cheap out on both methods of production and quality of ingredients.
There’s a similar perceived divide pre- and post-prohibition. The thinking is that some things didn’t come back right due to loss of expertise and equipment during the shutdown. Plus tastes changed over that period. Rye dominated before prohibition, with bourbon’s rise in popularity really happening after production restarted.
I went down the rabbit hole reading side-by-side reviews of 80s OGD with current make and now I am jealous of @Knighted_Vorpal_Sword. Enjoy!
I had heard that vermouth was a type of wine and goes bad fairly quickly once opened.
Indeed it can be very funky if left out and unrefrigerated.
I would have thought so too. 100+ year old gin? Sure. But yeah, I don’t know how vermouth that old would be any good. Maybe the bar only uses vintage vermouth that they obtain unopened, and once opening have to use it up reasonably quickly.
I thought even wine that’s meant to age for a long time still has a certain shelf life in which it will turn to vinegar if left to age too long unopened.
Years ago I made a 6gallon carboy of Merlot. It turned out very good. I let it age 6 months and we began enjoying it. A few bottles were pushed to the back of our wine rack and forgotten. When found again it was absolutely amazing at 15 years. I wish we had saved a few bottles.
Well, I’ve done my research - by accident as it turned out. Posted this in 2020{
Spending the evening at our friends, J and C, we got around to drinking whisky. J doesn’t drink and C is purely a social drinker, so doesn’t drink much at home; as a result they don’t get through whisky fast, but they have a fair few bottles in the cupboard. I was handed an unopened bottle of Haig and tasked with opening it.
First off, there was a heavy foil overcap, which was unusual; and underneath that a style of cap I had never seen before, which I had to guess my way to opening. Turns out this is a “spring cap”, which was something Haig used in the middle years of the last century. The bottle - which J later worked out must have originally been her father’s - was not only a historical artifact, it was virtually an heirloom.
It was fine. It didn’t taste like current Haig, but whether that’s because of aging or just because tastes (and therefore recipes) have changed - I don’t know.
j
My error.
Vermouth is a fortified wine and is reasonably stable for a period of time after being opened because even though the more volatile phenols will evaporate quickly, the flavor is dominated by the botanical components that are mostly heavier ‘essential’ oils that have long residual time. For the most part, vermouth is used in mixers (often with simple syrup or sweet juices, or in the case of a classic martini, to give some smoothness to the bite of alcohol and the sharp astringency of juniper) and not drank straight, so whatever nuances a freshly opened bottle of vermouth (sweet or dry) may lose are not really noticeable in the final product. (I have drank good dry vermouth as an aperitif but I can’t imagine anyone wanting to drink sweet vermouth by itself.)
I usually keep a bottle of vermouth for a couple of years (I go through it slowly because aside from Manhattans and the occasional Martini I don’t make a lot of mixers) and it seems fine, although I am sure there is some niche cadre of vermouth aficionados who would cringe in horror of keeping an open bottle for more than a week.
Stranger
I think this whole thread is just you and me fixin’ to fight. But good sweet vermouth is excellent on it’s own or with just a little splash of soda. My last trip to Spain I think about half of my fluids consumption was the vermouth offered everywhere I went.
Intro to Spanish Vermouth and How to Enjoy it When in Spain » Move to Traveling
Hey, I don’t dictate to anyone what they should or shouldn’t drink, and my opinions are just based upon my own experiences and tastes, so you should do whatever suits you without consideration for what anyone else thinks. But the thought of drinking sweet vermouth makes me shudder, and not in a good way.
Stranger
Ah. That’s encouraging for mine. (Which do not include any moonshine.)
None of mine are that old!
I don’t think that old, either. Probably 90’s at most. And I don’t think there’s more than one or more likely a partial bottle of any given thing.
Well, it’s a big world and we each get lots of opportunity to love and hate things following our own indivudual taste. I know I’ve made some people question my sanity when I told them I hated Pappy Van Winkle and gave several bottles away (from back when it was still Stitzel-Weller and not Buffalo Trace) that I probably should have sold.
I don’t drink much these days, but this rosé vermouth was a staple on my bar for several years.
I inherited my grandmother’s liquor cabinet, and my mother’s. Both had a mix of old and very old stuff, much of it opened.
I never thought twice about its safety. I’ve tried most if it. Some of the old stuff that’s been opened lost some flavor, but everything I’ve tried is drinkable. The really old grand marnier works fine as a flavoring for cooked foods. (Which is all i would use a new bottle for.)
I’m not much of a drinker, so who knows, my son may inherit some of those bottles.
(I have a friend who likes fancy old liquor bottles, so i unloaded all the weird stuff on him. There were bottles shaped like a violin and all sorts of other interesting things. He put it on the back of his liquor cabinet as decoration.)
Also encouraging.
I think that the next time I feel like using some of it I won’t hesitate because of the age (though I will look and smell before tasting.)
ETA: I suspect I ought to toss the Bailey’s Irish Cream, though.