Once in the bottle, spirits don’t age. Certain wines can mature in the bottle, but the majority of wines aren’t made to age. They just got older and mosty worse.
Thanks, yeah. I just wanted to know if a shot of 12 year old (barrel) / 52 year (bottle) MaCallan was more about “hey 52 years old and I paid 90G for it” over say a 18 year old McAllan.
Replicas of vintage whiskys found in shipwrecks or other caches are a thing:
I tried a bottle of the neo-Mackinlay myself.
I recently read an article about excessive behavior by rich people and there was a bartender in a high end club who said that sometimes customers would buy an expensive bottle of champagne and then tell him to pour it down the drain.
There comes a point when you’re not spending money to buy a better product; you’re just spending money to show you can spend money. I’m going to assume that a ninety thousand dollar bottle of whiskey is not a hundred times better than a nine hundred dollar bottle of whiskey. But buying it showed that you can spend ninety thousand dollars.
We did a thread on that:
I don’t know. That OP seems pretty sketchy.
I’m not sure the relationship should be linier. If the $90,000 bottle is twice as good, then maybe it’s worth 10x the price due to scarcity or other factors. (also, I don’t know how you quantify “twice as good” or “Ten times better.” A pub burger might cost twice what a Wendy’s burger cost. Is it “twice as good” or just “a lot better?”
I’m not a collector of wines and spirits. I don’t mind spending a lot, but it has to be something I’d be willing to drink. So, I guess $90,000 is out. I think the most I’ve ever spent is around $300 for a bottle of champagne.
Thank you for writing this! I sometimes feel like I’m missing out on some amazing experiences just because I’m on a budget. But you reminded me that I’m missing out on Only-Slightly-More-Amazing stuff.
I do have a bottle or two that I’ve gotten as presents. And every once in a while, I’ve tried some expensive Scotches at a bar, and they were wonderful… but did I have a much better evening because I spent more?
I guess that’s more dependent on the company than the drinks…
GodDAMN, but just reading that sentence chaps my ass something fierce.
It’s hard to believe. I won’t say it’s never happened, but I sure hope it’s rare. I love expensive champagne.
Nah, they stick to milkshakes.
Not really in my limited experience. I’ve tried a decent number of whiskeys, mostly of the lower end of aging. Then a friend got The Macallan* 18 year for her birthday, and was willing to share. It was outstanding, and in a way that I think anyone has had younger whiskeys could appreciate. It was so smooth, and it had much more depth of flavor.
- I’ve always seen and heard it referred to as “The Macallan.” Not just Macallan.
I’ve had some 25+ year old Scotch and you’d have to be suffering from loss of taste due to Covid not to notice the difference. It really is quite amazing how smooth that stuff is.
I don’t like the taste of any liquor. It all tastes nasty to me. I’ve tried a lot of it though out of curiosity. The good stuff clearly tastes less nasty though. I can definitely tell the difference.
Many of the better reds do age quite well in the bottle, and even quality whites can develop interesting complexities over time. But the time period before they start to decline can be fairly short, like only a year or so, and you really have to be a wine expert (which I’m not) to guesstimate optimal timings. I’ve had more than a few wines that I knew to be lovely in their prime that I just kept too long, even though they were kept in a wine rack in a cool basement. They were very much still drinkable but had lost the qualities that had made them so special.
One local winery had a spectacular Cabernet Franc from the 2011 vintage whose beautiful bouquet somehow reminded me of the pine forests of the Canadian northland. I don’t remember what year it was released, but by around 2020 it was, meh, just ordinary.
My BIL is a winemaker so we rely on him for advice. Some of his wines are designed to be laid up for a while, we know which ones and they really do improve after 4-5 years. Several aren’t really good for drinking the first year or two, but then they’re mature enough to be enjoyed.
Spirits don’t really follow that path. Most don’t change at all, a few (like Baileys) go bad.
Just piping in to say this thread has encouraged me to open a nice bottle of wine tonight. Thank you all. (Considerably less than $90,000, however).
I find the description of “smooth” to be pretty disappointing. If I’m dropping more than even $50 on a bottle, I want more than just lack of harshness. I want a depth of flavor, long lasting, nice mouthfeel (I find more viscosity in bourbon very pleasant).
That’s one of the reason I haven’t yet enjoyed any Irish whiskey, I’ve found them to all be very drinkable, but sweet and thin. Above Jameson or Bushmills I’ve only had Redbreast and Green Spot so maybe I need to branch out even more.
Several years ago a very wealthy gentleman passed away and left everything to his kids, He had a wine cellar full of expensive wines from all over the world, nothing was less than 30 years old. I sampled dozens of bottles and it was all bad. Looking back maybe the bottles has some value to a collector but we trashed all of it.
I’ve just finished off the last of the Penfold’s Koonunga Hill Shiraz-Cabernet with another one of those fantastic meat pies I was raving about elsewhere, and now for a glass of Bacardi Gold and a couple of Lindt caramel chocolates.
I know what you mean about being inspired by liquor discussions. The movie I mentioned earlier, The Angel’s Share, made me want some scotch even though I’ve never been much of a whisky drinker. 