Posted on 07/06/2012 5:38:52 PM PDT by yorkie
When a Missouri man decided to install central air-conditioning and central heat in the attic of his historic house, he found much more than he bargained for.
Bryan Fite, of St. Joseph, Mo., discovered 13 bottles of century-old whisky under the floorboards in the attic of his 1850s house.
He didn't recognize his good fortune right away, thinking the bottles were tubes or oddly shaped installation pipes. But Fite soon discovered he was sitting on a goldmine of antique whisky - the bottles are likely worth several hundred dollars each, and possibly more.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
They likley weren't store properly. The ones found in this article may be ruined as well if the liquid wasn't completely covering the cork the entire time. Cork dries out if not kept moist and allows air to enter. Air breaks down the contents.
Did they ever open it? And what’s the Titanic hiding?
As a retired professional drunk I can tell you that alcohol does not go bad in storage. It is a first class antiseptic and will kill microorganisms on contact. White spirits (alcohol straight from the still) is aged in charred oak barrels or Sherry casks for five to more then fifteen years. This is done to add color and flavor to the spirits, it also serves to mellow the flavor of the raw spirits by removing 'fusel oil', a more toxic byproduct of distilation. Once the whiskey is bottled in glass no further improvement is forthcoming. There is a possibility that bottles sealed with only a cork and stored at a higher then normal temperature (an attic) will undergo an evaporation loss (the Angel's share) which would alter the subtle flavor elements.
Regards,
GtG
Oh My!
Digging for bottles and crocks kept me out of a lot of trouble.
I think they open the Antartic stuff and had it analyzed to reproduce the recipe.
I’ve had bottles of every type of alcohol you can imagine, on my shelves for years. Most of it unopened. Now, I’m wondering if I should just throw it all out.
You’ll know when you open it LOL
If it is screw top you likely are fine. If it is cork? Maybe maybe not. If the corked bottle is stored pointing downard or horizonal and covers the cork it’s most likely fine. The screw top allows for a better seal that doesn’t dry out. I used to make my own wine when I was an older teenager and into my young adult years. Air was not your friend in any part of the processing or storing.
It is all hard stuff - not wine. (My wine is stored in a different place.) Tequila, Rum, Gin, Vodka, Whiskey, Bourbon, etc.
Bourbon Ping!
Should we watch the auction sites?
A friend of mine said OLD CROW tastes like paint thinner. maybe that is why I drink it.
I would think that stuff would be ok.
***I know they found a stash in Antarctica that was still good to drink.***
There are a couple of bottles buried under the floor of Ft Yuma that were put there, along with other stuff when the fort was abandoned. The Nat’l Park Service refuses to let a dig take place for it.
Bastages!
Roughly 200 bottles all just pre Civil War. I could not believe it and all stored sideways. Just amazing. Never found out what happened to it and the man I worked for had no real interest in making an offer.
But while in that line of work I often managed to walk away with some very old cognacs and armagnacs. Man I worked for had no interest in the least and it was going to end up on the dumpster anyway. The cognacs were just out of this world. But if the bottle was not consumed in one evening the next day the remaining contents would be cloudy and the taste would be quite different.
Do you mean that a whole bottle of cognac must be consumed upon opening, or it will turn cloudy and be ruined?
The first bottle I opened I shared with a close friend but we did not finish it. The next day it was very cloudy and tasted ‘ off ‘. It was okay tasting but with bite ( to my amateur palette ) whereas the night before it was like drinking silk - never have I had anything since like those bottles. Not all were that old, a few dated from the 1950s and early 1960s but they were something special.
LOL! Enjoy!
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