The good news is that liquor such as gin, vodka, whiskey, tequila, and rum, are considered shelf-stable. That means that as long as you store the bottle properly and it remains unopened, you can consider it safe to drink indefinitely.
The Macallan 81 Year Old
In early February 2022, The Macallan unveiled the oldest whisky ever released: The Macallan Reach. Distilled in 1940 during the Second World War, it spent 81 years building character in a single sherry seasoned cask before just 288 artisanal decanters were filled.
1. The Macallan 'The Reach' 81-Year-Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky ($299,609) The Reach was distilled at the Macallan Estate in 1940 during the Second World War. It matured for 81 years in a single sherry-seasoned cask.
Can You Get Sick from Drinking Old Whiskey? If you found an old bottle of whiskey in the back of a liquor cabinet and want to give it a try, have no fear: In general, old liquor will not make you sick like other expired items. The only risk it poses is delivering a dull taste and underwhelming drinking experience.
This 100-Year-Old Bottle of Whiskey Can Be Yours for Just $17,000.
Only an infinitesimal number of special barrels have gone the distance of 50 years, and their rarity and longevity always command top dollar. Current offerings of 50 year old scotch, like Dalmore, can cost as much as $60,000 a bottle, making others, like Benromach, look like a veritable bargain at $14,500.
Most wines will improve with age but too much age will ultimately spell the end of what was once a great wine. 200 year old shipwreck wines are lucky if they taste like wine at all.
Most distilled spirits, such as whiskey, rum, brandy, gin, vodka and tequila, have a nearly indefinite shelf life if they are unopened. This is because the sugar content is low, limiting the growth of micro-organisms and the high alcohol content is deadly to bacteria.
An unopened bottle of whiskey will last indefinitely if stored in proper condition. After opening a bottle of whiskey, you have as long as two years or as few as six months or less to drink it before it goes bad.
While unopened alcohol has an almost-indefinite shelf life, opened liquor does, in fact, expire. They won't spoil in the same way that milk does, but liquors lose their flavor, coloring, and potency over time, leading to undesirable drinks for your customers.
A whisky with a minimum age of 30 years is a truly special thing. Over this length of time the cask will have imparted all kinds of character and depth to these drams, and the resulting whiskies have the potential to carry staggeringly complex flavours.
Buffalo Trace is the oldest continuously operating distillery in America. During Prohibition the distillery was even permitted to remain operational, to make whiskey for "medicinal purposes".
Does gin go off? Gin is a very stable spirit and if unopened and stored correctly it will retain its quality and flavour. How long can you keep gin once opened? Once opened, gin can be stored for years without going bad, unless you keep it in an unsealed bottle next to a radiator or in direct sunlight.
How Long Does Wine Typically Last? When stored properly and kept unopened, white wines can often outlive their recommended drinking window by 1-2 years, red wines by 2-3 years, and cooking wines by 3-5 years. Fine wine — as you may have guessed — can typically be consumed for decades.
The chances of whisky going bad are very slim. While the taste might change over time, whisky doesn't technically go off. After a point, you may decide that a bottle has been opened for too many years and it tastes too different from what it originally was and consequently get rid of the remaining contents.
After drinking the same amount of alcohol, older people have higher blood alcohol concentrations than younger people because of such changes as a lower volume of total body water and slower rates of elimination of alcohol from the body.
In a nutshell, aging spirits is done to give them a superior flavor and drinking quality. Aging allows specific chemical reactions to occur, as well as simply allowing the spirits to “steep” and develop flavor over time. Ultimately, aging spirits makes for a more enjoyable drinking experience.
So, could you drink what's left? On a microbiological level, yes: Researchers say it's likely safe and won't kill you, although the wine won't taste good.
It was rather a surprise for me to know that there is a barrel of wine that has been preserved for more than 500 years! An old wine. The wine in question is a white wine made from Alsace grapes cultivated in the Alsace region of France, which shares its borders with Germany.
The Speyer wine bottle (or Römerwein) is a sealed vessel, presumed to contain liquid wine, and so named because it was unearthed from a Roman tomb found near Speyer, Germany. It is considered the world's oldest known bottle of wine.
Johnnie Walker Blue Label is a notoriously expensive bottle due to simple market economics: It is an incredibly rare blend. The scotches that form the Blue Label blend are themselves rare, and only one in every 10,000 casks is considered to be of sufficient quality to deserve the label.
Still, always looking for an angle, Sotheby's did say that The Macallan The Reach 81 Years Old — as the bottle is officially called — beat the previous record for a "world's oldest whisky" which was last set in October 2021 by Decanter #1 of the Gordon & Macphail Generations 80-Years-Old at a price of £142,000 (or ...
The Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index shows 586% price growth for the decade up to 2020 on some bottles of single malt. With figures like these, it's common to find whisky described as a 'safe haven asset' or 'liquid gold' because the price accrual hasn't been affected by the vicissitudes of the macroeconomy.