How long can i safe my whisky ?

Single malt whisky or blended whisky can be saved endlessly. The oldest know bottle of whisky is a

Glenavon Special Liqueur Whisky between 1851 – 1858

Wine will develop inside a bottle. (under the right circumstances.) That is why the vintage year of a good château is very important.

With whisky that process will stop after bottling. Whisky will only develop in taste, structure and body if it is stored in a cask or barrel for maturation.

But there are a couple of facts that you need to keep in mind if you don’t want your expensive and precious whisky won’t go to waist.

Read more about the positive and negative effects on saving your whisky below.

The positive effects on aging your whisky

The positive effect on aging whisky is that it will increase its value every year you keep it closed. The market value of a bottle of single malt whisky is one of the highest rated markets out there.

This will mean that if you buy an old, special bottle of single malt whisky from a good and well known distillery, you will double or sometimes even quadruple the amount you invested.

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The negative effects of an open bottle of whisky ?

There are a couple of negative effects that will occur when your bottle of whisky is open:

Colour change
Smell will be softer
Taste will be flatter
Your peat level will decrease

Oxygen:

These effects are all negative and need to be prevented. This will mean you need to put your leftover whisky in a smaller bottle. This so oxygen can’t reach your precious whisky.

Heat:

Also you need to keep it in a room where the temperature is constant. But at least between 15 – 18 degrees Celsius. This so the whisky won’t evaporate faster through the cork. ( This will be for long time storage.) Also vapor pressure will be formed inside the bottle. This will allow for the ethanol to be extracted out of the whisky. (Your whisky will be out of balance if this happens often. )

Sunlight:

You need to keep your whisky bottles out of the sunlight. The UV-rays won’t do your whisky any good. The color of your whisky will change (and not for the better.) This is because the UV-rays will remove the colours from your whisky.

Alcohol strength:

Then there is an effect that your ABV will drop because of the oxygen inside the bottle. (also with a significant number of years.)

Whisky fact: "Have you ever noticed that the trees around any distillery are black? This is a disease caused by the spirit fumes from the nearby distillery. Luckily it has no negative effect on the tree itself, just the colour."

Livingbythedram

Whisky Blogger

So how do i need to store my closed and opened bottles of whiskies then?

STORE YOUR WHISKY UPRIGHT

Alongside light exposure, the position of whisky bottles is important to consider. Unlike wine bottles (which are recommended to be stored horizontally), whisky should be stored upright. Where wine corks are made to stay in contact with the spirit to keep it moist, they are not made for repeated use once opened. In contrast, whisky corks are designed for extended use once opened, but should not be consistently wet or they will cease to be effective. This is because the high alcohol content in the spirit will start to degrade the cork over time.

WET YOUR WHISKY CORK PERIODICALLY

While it may seem to directly contradict the tip above, a perfectly dry cork will become brittle over time, which can be just as damaging for your whisky in the long run. A brittle cork will lose its seal, and can even break off into the bottle. With this in mind, every so often it is beneficial to tip your bottle over to briefly wet the cork and keep it moistened.