Keeping Whisky

[Scotchio]

Being a man of slender means but expensive tastes I was wondering if anyone has a good solution for staving off the negative effects of oxidization beyond 'drink it'!
I have a great love of Brora, 1970s Ardbeg and Port Ellen and have a few bottles of each stashed away for the future but ideally once opened I'd like to be able to return to these bottles as an occasional treat. I am considering rebottling to 35 and 20cl bottles to reduce air contact and frequency of letting the genie out and fresh air in. Has anyone tried this or had any success with other methods?
Any suggestions gratefully received
Scotchio[/b]

[Admiral]

Hi Scotchio, and welcome!

This topic has been discussed at length, under numerous thread headings, and in fact was discussed with great enthusiasm quite recently.

Have a look through the forum archives and search for things like "How long does a bottle last", "Oxidation", "How quickly should I drink a whisky", and topics along those lines.

The questions you've asked have been answered directly in those previous threads.

Cheers,
Admiral

[Deactivated Member]

What he said.

Until someone comes out with Scotch-In-A-BoxTM, decanting to 20cl bottles, if you have enough of them, seems like a good idea.

[Badmonkey]

My preferred technique is to pick up the pace once I hit the 50% mark、finish the bottle with a few good friends, and then move on to the next one. It's a low-tech solution, and an impractical one for people with a large collection, but it has served me well over the past few years.

Cheers, and welcome.

Badmonkey

[Scotchio]

Thanks chaps,I will seek out the previous discussions

[Habanero]

Man I have NEVER faced this problem - I am always kicking myself in the ass for going through a very nice bottle like it was freaking Boone's Farm or something. I will never have an oxidation problem - that is for sure.

[nicholtl]

I wonder if a poor-man's solution could simply be to place your lips to the bottle opening, suck in as much air from the bottle as your lungs will hold, then quickly re-cork it?

[Deactivated Member]

Unless you swallow the cork.

[Lawrence]

That would suck.

[MGillespie]

Remember, nature abhors a vacuum. It might be better to leave well enough alone...unless you can adapt one of those wine preservation systems that replaces the air in the bottle with an inert gas.

Mark

[kallaskander]

Hi there,

unless you have a build in vacuum pump and a lightspeed recorking machine in your mouth you will have to cope with the inevitable. No way to drink and keep the whisky.

Greetings
kallaskander

[MGillespie]

There's an update on this topic at the Scotch Blog...

http://www.scotchblog.com

Mark

[ScotchBlog]

There's an update on this topic at the Scotch Blog...

http://www.scotchblog.com

Mark

Thanks Mark...it's actually http://www.thescotchblog.com...I'm still waiting for the unused http://www.scotchblog.com to become available.

[voigtman]

Pulling a vacuum over the whisky is not a good idea: more than just air, water vapor and ethanol is removed that way. It reduces oxidation, sure, but it definitely degrades the whisky: the most volatile components, which may be important in the nose, are preferentially suctioned away. Enough to taste? Who knows? I'm not trying it, that's for sure.

When I went to the scotch blog site, there was a post from someone who claimed that nitrogen gas (which can be used to displace air in a whisky bottle) was denser than air. No way. The molecular weight of nitrogen is 28.014 g/mole. Air is mostly nitrogen, but roughly 20% oxygen, which has molecular weight 31.999 g/mole. So air is denser than nitrogen. Argon would work fine as a relatively cheap, inert blanket gas. Krypton and xenon would be better, in terms of density, but are far too expensive for such frivolous use, especially Xe. Carbon dioxide is a very poor choice: it is denser than air, but dissolves in aqueous solutions (which all whisk(e)y is) and thereby carbonates it. (Water plus dissolved carbon dioxide is carbonated water, aka "soda water" or "club soda"). Yuck!

Transferring to small bottles with caps that can resist alcohol is viable. Adding lots of scrupulously clean marbles is just plain weird (and an invitation to accidental choking on an errant marble).

I still favor putting a bottle out of its misery when it is down near the end. Just my two cents. Slainte, Ed V.

[MGillespie]

There's an update on this topic at the Scotch Blog...

http://www.scotchblog.com

Mark

Thanks Mark...it's actually http://www.thescotchblog.com...I'm still waiting for the unused http://www.scotchblog.com to become available.

Oops...my mistake! Sorry...

Mark

[Deactivated Member]

Based on nothing but a single dram left out overnight and pure conjecture, I believe that evaporation of alcohol and other volatiles is the major degrading factor for whisky, rather than oxidation.

[Deactivated Member]

I suppose a natural form of vacuum could be achived by keeping whisky in a cool environment.
The chosen bottle could be retrived and brought up to room temp., sampled and re-corked. When returned to the the cellar the drop in temperature would create a slight vacuum in the bottle. Whether that would reduce the effects of oxidation, better folk than I will have to answer.

However, I do think that storing in a cool dark place - not a fridge! - helps keep whisky fresher.

Better still, as mentioned before - if it's open, drink it 'til it's done

[ScotchBlog]

Everyone, great comments.
Feel free to leave your opinion on The Scotch Blog as well, so that people can see all of the differing opinions.

I'm a little worried about the long-term use of them as well...
I do trust Brett's opinion, but I can see that as a long term solution - probably not the best one...