Heavens to Betsy! The cork fell in! Throw it out. You might get microplastics or such.
A lawyer once gave me a bottle of Glenlivet single malt scotch for Christmas and I opened it right away to see how it tasted. I don’t drink much so that bottle lasted until the following Christmas when the same lawyer gave me another bottle.
I had two bottles of prewar Scotch from my dad who had diabetes and had quit drinking. One was a ceramic jug of Red Hackle and the other was a bottle of Haig and Haig Pinch.
I opened the Red Hackle last year and the cork crumbled but the whiskey was intact, and I filtered it and put it in a bitter bottle. Tasted good. After I decanted it and waited 6 months it tasted really good.
This Christmas, I will open the Pinch!
This ranch was where John Graves wrote his book; Good Bye To A River.
The owners said Graves had a vineyard and made his own wine at the ranch.
In the crawl space of one building, I found multiple cases of wine bottles which the bottles were stored on their side to keep the corks wet.
Rats and mice had chewed the corks until they dripped and most likely drank the wine.
I told the owners what I found and that all bottles were emptied. Said I could keep a bottle, but Graves did not put his name on any of the labels, so there was no providence.
Everything was left in place.
My parents owned a liquor store but didn’t drink. They had a small cupboard that had a few bottles they’d taken when they sold the store. I opened a bottle of Jack Daniel’s that had sat on the shelf for 45 years. They say whisky didn’t age any more once it has been bottled, but that was some of the smoothest hooch I’ve ever had
“...when he went to open it, he found the cork had completely crumbled.”
This can happen to any alcohol and whisky is no different. Whiskey does not get better with age once it is in the bottle; the aging process stops when the spirit is bottled, as the flavors and characteristics are developed through contact with oak barrels, not through oxidation or further interaction from the bottle itself. While unopened whiskey will not go bad if stored properly, its flavor profile will remain the same as when it was bottled.
One of the main p0roblems with getting a good bottle of wine is the steward that opens it. When he/she hands you the cork make sure it is whole. And for God’s sake don’t smell the cork as you will smell what is on the hands of the steward, not the wine. And you know where the cork has been but not the hands.
To properly store whiskey, keep bottles upright to prevent the high alcohol content from eroding the cork. Store bottles in a cool, dark place away from direct sunlight and significant temperature fluctuations to protect the liquid from heat damage and light-induced degradation.
For opened bottles, minimize air exposure by keeping them sealed tightly or transferring to a smaller decanter, and for opened bottles with real corks, you may want to gently tip them every few months to keep the cork moist and prevent it from drying out.
wy69
Liquor store near me closed about 20 years ago. The owner inherited it from his father. He had, behind the counter, several bottles of potato whiskey, made in WW2, when grain was rationed, which he kept on display, but would not sell. Don’t know what happened to them when the contents were inventoried.
SNL had a skit about soaking corks. For immature adults only: https://youtu.be/Deqx-Xb-yHY?feature=shared.
In the 70s, my mom was saving some bottles of wine in case President Nixon ever came to dinner. Eventually she gave up waiting and opened them, but it was too late: they were undrinkable.
My mom was funny.
So, he drank it anyway so fail to see the need for headlines. Lesson should be to share it with his coworkers 17 years ago.
Cork is nice and I confess I like the old ways, but to protect and preserve the contents of any bottle, nothing beats a screw top. Keeps bottling costs down and does an unsurpassed job of keeping everything intact.
He stored it upright. The cork dried out.
So, the big disappointment was a crumbly cork? Jeez.
I’m an old man now, and I’ve learned a hard truth. When I was younger, I made a “bucket list” — all the things I wanted to do someday, when I had more time or more money. But life got busy. Work came first. One by one, those dreams got pushed aside.
Then retirement came. Finally, I had the time. I had the money. But I no longer had my health. The things I once could’ve done with ease were now out of reach. I waited too long to start checking things off that list.
If there’s one thing I’d tell my younger self — or anyone willing to listen — it’s this: don’t wait too long. The “perfect time” rarely comes. Start living your dreams while you still can.
“he tucked away a bottle of Johnnie Walker Green Label almost two decades ago”. That would have really hurt if it was 10 year Whistle Pig Rye Whiskey.
Whiskey only ages when it’s in a wooden barrel made for that purpose. Once you bottle it, all it does is get old.