sitting on the shelf

I do the same- would be interested to know opinions on this...

Whisky can stay for a long while in the bottle. It should be closed, obviously. However, whisky catchs smell from outside, so keep it in a "safe" place.

I read somewhere that as the level in the bottle gets lower, there is more air in the bottle and some chemical changes occur. I used to use one of those "wine saver" nitrogen spray cans to displace the air in an open bottle.

hawk

pr> I have about 10 different scotches on the go right now.

This topic comes around every now and then. I'll try to summarize what I remember from previous go-rounds.

The consensus in the group is that single malts do change over time and with exposure to air, generally for the worse -- to over-generalize, they lose some of their zing. Some posters have noted a few malts improving after being open for a while, but this may be a matter of personal taste.

Most posters seem to agree that if you're going to have an open bottle around for more than half a year or so, and especially after it's half empty, you should take some measures to preserve its freshness. I've heard of the nitrogen technique someone else suggested, although I think that's intended for wine. I don't know how it works with whisky.

The two suggestions that keep coming up are to add glass marbles to the bottle to keep the liquid up to the top, and more often, to invest in a bunch of smaller bottles into which you decant the malt once the level goes down a little. That way, at any given time most of the remaining malt is in full bottles with little air exposure.

bill

You have already got some good answers to your question, I see. I would like to add that in my experience, air exposure most often seem to improve the whisky in the beginning, up to a certain (or should I say uncertain?) point. From then on, as others have commented, the whisky tends to just become duller. (It oxidizes, but it doesn't go bad in the same sense as food or wine).

But I find the improvement that SOME air exposure can produce interesting, and seldom commented. I recently mentioned this effect with the Isle of Jura Superstition - and if I remember correctly, Douglas W. Hoyt has written about that earlier. Right now, I'm re-tasting my Signatory UCF Laphroaig 15, which I recently wrote about on this NG, and it has really improved since last time. (I have stored some in a smaller bottle, and had some, and the remains in the original bottle has had some air to breathe in in the meantime, about two weeks). ...so don't believe all I said about this Laphroaig earlier!

I have started taking notes (not very long ago). From the start I have tried to notice and write down the effect of adding water. With many whiskies though, I find I prefer them neat. I started to notice that some of the effects I had attributed to adding water occured all the same (without diluting), when the whisky simply had been in the glass for a while. (It "opens", gets smokier, etc). Often 15 to 30 minutes is enough. And sometimes, the whisky improves over a few weeks in an opened bottle (corked, of course). But if you are to keep it for more than, say, 3 to 6 months, decanting to smaller bottles is a good suggestion. I have started to decant a sample or two for saving when I open a new whisky (and for this purpose I decant at once to minimize air exposure for the sample), and I hope and believe it will stay "fresh" for many years.

Gunnar

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