Can someone tell me about aging alcohol? I know that an alcoholic drink’s ‘age’ is determined (in the case or wine or scotch or whatnot, anyway) by how long it was stored in a barrel, and that once it is bottled, it stops changing chemically and stays the same. I’d like to know more about this, specifically about how long any given kind of alcohol can mature and not lose quality, what some particularly long-lived varieties might be, and whether quality decreases over time after it has been bottled.
I’ve heard that whiskey ages particularly well and have found some 60-year-old available for sale. Is there any older than that? Is quality directly related to how long an alcohol has aged or is there a peak somewhere and after that it becomes so much highly potent and smelly goo at the bottom of an oak barrel?
Also, how much does the aging process actually improve the quality–can originally mediocre whiskey or whatnot be vastly improved into something special just by sitting around in a barrel for several decades?
It’s a bit arrogant of me to jump in on this thread as I am a novice scotch drinker, but one with a growing appreciation of Scotch whisky. I saw a documentary on TV which may be this one. It shows the entire process of aging whisky in charred oak barrels, where the temperature cycles throught the course of the year are very important in how the whisky ages. Somehow the whisky gets absorbed into the wood and then expelled back into barrel, with a significant amount of the liquid (I think both alcohol and water) lost to the atmosphere. This is appropriately called the “angel’s share”. I seem to recall that the “angel’s share” was something like 10% per year which is why an 18 year old Macallan is $150 while the 12 year is a mere $40.
After the aging processor some magical dude mixes up batches from a bunch of different barrels of the same age to create this most perfect nectar. Or something like that.
First, not all alcoholic beverages improve with age. With a few rare exceptions, beer is best fresh. Most white wines don’t improve with age much, if at all.
Some hard liquors gain little from aging, especially if they’re in sterile glass or metal containers. The reason many alcoholic beverages are aged in oak casks is to impart some of the tannins and other flavors from the cask into the drink. A tequila aged three years in oak will change quite a bit. That same tequila aged three years in the bottle will have no noticeable change.
If you age cheap booze, you’ll get aged cheap booze.
10% per year would tend to be a pretty high loss, I would think. (Was there a typo in that last sentence? I’m not sure I follow. Unless the 18-year-old is much more valuable because there is much less of it than the 12-year-old?) In this case, how is it that enough survives for thirty or more years to sell, unless it is in just miniscule amounts?
I apologize if the answers are in the video. It’s rather late at night here for involved video-watching, but I’m definitely going to get to it in the morning.
It also depends what it is aged in- various woods give different flavours for different spirits. Also a lot of manufacuters add flavouring agents anyway (especially cheap booze). Loss rate depends on how it is stored (as an example- what size quantities- is it in a huge wooden vat, a steel vat, or smaller wooden casks).
Beer - Under 7% ABV is best fresh. Over 7% ABV can take a little aging before bottling. Once bottled, all beer does is decline.
Wine - 90% of the wine produced is designed for immediate consumption. High tannin wines can age and improve in the barrel for some amazing lengths of time. Bottle aging can then add additional nuances to these wines. But they are few and far between. Chateau Pissior won’t get any better from storing a bottle for 10 years.
Spirits - The lighter the spirit, the less time it needs to age. Vodka, gin, light rum and the like basically go from the still to the bottle, and do not get better there. Single malts, bourbons, and darker rums will improve with barrel aging. Once bottled, however, they don’t improve. There is a definite but varying max on aging, however. A bourbon that has spent 20 years in oak isn’t always better than one that has spent 9 years.
This isn’t my experience at all, but I tend to bottle early. I find most of my beer peeks around six months. Unfortunately, most of it never lasts that long. Clearly though, the stuff two weeks after bottling isn’t the best.
Commercial beer. Homebrew is a whole 'nother thing entirely. Mead especially. The stuff is swill until it gets a year or two on it, and just gets better and better as it ages. I’ve had a 19 year old Raisin-Sherry mead that was borderline transcendant.
The other distinguishing factor with homebrews (and some craftbrews, like Sierra Nevada) is that they’re bottled “live,” with active yeast still in the bottle. They’ll continue to develop and change with age for a while. You can contrast that with something from the megabreweries, which is filtered within an inch of its life - it starts going downhill almost immediately.
Hmm, if that is the SD on aging…then why pay a premium for 60-yr old bottle of Scotch when I could get the same taste from a brand new bottle at a reasonable price? - Jinx
To my knowledge, tight cooperage in the service of the alcoholic beverage industry is restricted to white oak, as the normally ring porous wood in this species becomes sealed with its own tyloses during cell growth.
I read that French white oak is the preferred wood, and that many Bourbon makers purchase used European barrels for mellowing.
The barrels are charred prior to initial use. As you know,charcoal has enormous adsorptive capacity and is the congener interface that enables mellowing magic.
Jinx: The age of the whisky is the time it has spent in cask - not the time since it was distilled. With your 60 year old Scotch you will probably see a a bottling date as well as an age. Of course the other reason for paying more is sheer scarcity value.
AIUI, ales were casked in pitch lined cooperage, which has been largely replaced by stainless to great advantage. ( Not to disparage the efforts of CAMRA).
The pitch would seem to obviate any gains from Bourbon service, but I have no factual answer for your question.
Homebrewers are an inventive lot, wouldn’t surprise me 'tall.
It is also worthy of mentioning that the age of the oak barrels is a factor also. Especially in the case of wines, whites in particular, all new oak cooperage can have an enormous impact on the finished product’s flavor.
Some wineries use all new oak barrels for each vintage (or even ferment the wine in the barrel), a mix of old and new, and some wines are aged in neutral casks that impart little or no flavor.
Interesting! I imagine that this is probably true of some whiskey or another; it may also be that Bourbon makes purchase new European barrels for mellowing. However, by legal definition, Bourbon is aged in new barrels.
