Vacuum cork for whiskey

[steevenwh]

I was wondering.. I know that It's nice to keep that beautiful original cork in the whiskey but, considering the problem generated by the exposition to air, wouldn't be intelligent to use a vacuum cork that is often used to prevent oxidation on opened bottles of wine?
For does who doesn't know, this cork is a plastic cork that you put on the bottle and has a device that takes the air off the bottle and keep it that way until opened. It is not that beautiful, but, again, it would minimize the damage of air.


See ya!

[kildalton]

well, if it fits it looks a great idea

[Ganga]

Well, the experiment has been underway in the Bay Area (Marin) for the last couple of weeks. I'll ask MikeyMad to keep us updated.

I still say that the best solution is

[steevenwh]

Indeed, it seems that not all bottles fit the wine corks. The only one so far I have tried and worked were Lagavulin and all from Johnnie Walker.
And, yes, the best option is but, unless you don't want to get seriously or you want to enjoy a Glenrothes 1984 that has ran out of bottles at the producer for more time, you might want to start thinking about rather then
ehehheeh yeah!

[Aidan]

I think creating a vacuum in a high-alcohol content drink might not be the same as doing it with a wine. It may actually lose some %abv. Just a guess, though.

[Deactivated Member]

I wonder, too, whether the vacuum would cause vaporisation of alcohol, reducing strength of the liquid. Don't know enough about the physics of it. The consensus seems to be to drink up in a timely fashion. Whisky oughtn't go off as quickly as wine in any case, should it?

Alternatively, decant to smaller bottles.

[Deactivated Member]

I'm not sure we've discussed particularly the boiling point of ethanol under low pressure--I would think I'd remember that. If we have, it isn't the only thing we've discussed more than once. In any case, thanks for the info, and for validating (I think) my discomfort with doing this. It seems to me that the air in the bottle will become saturated fairly quickly, and what one would wish to do is to minimize the circulation of fresh air into the bottle. So don't go nosing your precious bottles every day!

Another thought...if the air in the bottle is saturated with whatever evaporates have come out of the whisky, is it theoretically possible to condense most of them by cooling the bottle? Or to limit evaporation by keeping the bottle cool in the first place?

[peergynt323]

First off, the only perfect vacuum is in space. Man hasn't come very close to it so far.

I've read a lot about the wine vacuums. Supposedly they reduce the air pressure (amount of air molecules) by 20-30%. One product claims 50%, but that seems high to me. It won't make a huge difference in oxidation, but the reduced pressure will cause rapid evaporation of all volatile components in your whisky including water, aromatics and alcohol. A good deal more of these things will evaporate to restore the equilibrium in your bottle than they would if the bottle were already in equilibrium.

A better alternative are the nitrogen cartriges that you can shoot into a bottle to replace the oxygen. Nitrogen is more or less inert.

If you want a totally inert gas, I guess you could use helium.

[Muskrat Portage]

Thank you PG323, generally what I was going to post. I've tried the vacuum cork with wine and was frankly unimpressed with it. Unless the bottle fits perfectly, as was pointed out, the vacuum doesn't last. I've turfed mine out.( Brit translation "Put in the tip")
Muskrat