Why do we need to find the second best way to store it? Because everyone knows the best way - it exists in our belly!
However, for various reasons, the best way to "drink" is not useful to everyone. For example, some friends just buy it and save it, and wait until it is an important day in the future to open it, or sell it after it appreciates; or, if you buy too much at one time, you can't finish it.
At this time, you need to find a suitable place to store the whiskey.
Thankfully, spirits are not as delicate as wine, and you also need to find a constant temperature wine cabinet to store. Due to the high alcohol content of spirits, the body of the wine is quite stable. As long as it is not under very extreme conditions, there is no risk of the flavor deterioration in a short period of time.
But if the spirits are stored for a long time, such as more than 5 or even 10 years, there are still many risks. For example, the most common point that collectors hate: the drop in the water level.
The water level of the two bottles of 1963 McAllen on the right is much different; if they are taken to auction together, the price of the bottle on the right will definitely be discounted.
The reason for the drop in water level is evaporation. Although the bottle of whiskey is not opened, the plug is tightly stuffed and it will not leak wine even if it shakes hard. But the wine will still slowly vaporize, escaping between the plug and the bottle mouth. Over time, the situation in the picture above caused the drop in the wine level.
The consequences of drop in water levels are not just that it makes us take a sip. Considering that in many daily situations, the gasification rate of ethanol is faster than that of water, alcohol with a significantly lower water level is likely to be lower than when bottling. If it is above 50 degrees when bottled, this problem is not very big, but if it is originally a 43 degree or 40 degree wine, the alcohol content will decrease, and the taste of the wine will become watery; if it is a bit serious, you can also drink the "water" taste directly.
On the other hand, the aroma substances in the wine are all organic matter, which are soluble in alcohol but are insoluble in water. Therefore, when the alcohol in the bottle is too evaporated, the aroma substances will evaporate part of them, and the flavor of the wine will also become worse.
Therefore, preventing the water level from falling has become one of the most important problems that collectors need to solve when storing whiskey for a long time.
The drop in water level is caused by evaporation, and high temperatures and strong air flow will increase the evaporation, so everyone usually puts spirits in a cool cabinet - this is of course the most basic.
In addition, many collectors will also use a laboratory sealing film called "Parifilm" to wrap the envelope at the mouth of the wine bottle, try to block various gaps and reduce evaporation.
Recently, some wine lovers have discovered that because of its stickiness, this kind of sealing film will be glued together with the envelope at the whiskey bottle in the future. This is not a problem for collectors who store wine and prepare for future drinking, but if they want to keep it for sale in the future, it is a big problem, because many expensive wines need to be judged by observing the shape, color and status of the bottle envelope. If you accidentally tore the envelope off when you tear off the Parafilm during inspection, it will be very embarrassing.
So the powerful drinkers have another trick: use a sealed bag to put the whole bottle of wine, squeeze out the air, and then lock the sealing strips - in theory, this can indeed reduce the evaporation.
However, the most important function of this method is that it will not destroy the envelope at the bottle mouth and can protect the wine label; but is it better than Parafilm for reducing the evaporation (after all, I have some wines that I want to keep for future drinking, and I don’t plan to resell)?
With this question, I initially planned to do an experiment, take two bottles of the same wine, one bottle of Parafilm, and one bottle of sealed bag, and see which one has a lower evaporation after a period of time.
Later I found that if stored normally, I couldn’t tell the difference in the best for a few years. So I decided to put two bottles of wine on the balcony and dry them during the day to accelerate the evaporation so that they can see the truth as soon as possible.
But since you are going to do such an experiment, it is better to get a few more samples and try all the situations?
So in the end I made more than ten bottles of wine to do this experiment...
So since I have made such a big battle, I might as well write an article to record it.
The following is the situation of these samples:
Sample No. 1: naked bottle, unopened bottle, without any protection (for control)
Weight at the beginning of the experiment: 1174.5g
Sample No. 2: naked bottle, unopened bottle, bottle wrap Parafilm sealing
The weight at the beginning of the experiment: 1 173g
Sample No. 3: bare bottle, unopened bottle, enclosed bag
Weight at the beginning of the experiment: 1172.5g
Sample No. 4: bare bottle, unopened bottle, put into the carton of the wine bottle
Weight at the beginning of the experiment: 1171.5g
Sample No. 5: Naked bottle, unopened bottle, sealed bag, put into the carton of the wine bottle
Weight at the beginning of the experiment: 1172.5g
Sample No. 6: Naked bottle, unopened bottle, bottle tangled with Parafilm sealing film, sealed bag, put into the carton of the wine bottle
The weight at the beginning of the experiment: 1171.5g
Sample No. 7: Naked bottle, unopened bottle, put in a Baolilong foam box (this box is generally used to send wine, but I think it is very suitable for storing some more expensive wine, so this experiment is also used)
The weight at the beginning of the experiment: 1170.5g
The above seven samples are used to test the effectiveness of various protective measures, and whether some measures will have better results when superimposed.
Then there are several samples below:
Sample No. 8: bare bottle, opened bottle, no protection, remove the envelope, the bottle plug is a plug
The weight at the beginning of the experiment: 1170g
Sample No. 9: bare bottle, opened bottle, without any protection, remove the envelope, the bottle plug is made of resin + PE pad
The weight at the beginning of the experiment: 1274 grams
Sample No. 10: bare bottle, opened bottle, without any protection, remove the envelope, the bottle plug is a metal screw cap + PE pad.
Weight at the beginning of the experiment: 1075g
The three samples No. 8, 9 and 10 are to see which of these different bottle plugs have the best sealing effect. Sample No. 10 itself does not have a bottle-mouth envelope, so the envelopes of No. 8 and No. 9 are also removed for a fair comparison.
The above samples 1 to 10 will be concentrated in a box, and the evaporation process is accelerated by various methods to obtain experimental results as soon as possible. The specific measures are: put on the balcony during the day and exposed to the sun; at night, it is placed in the room with 30-degree heating on.
Next I set up two control groups:
Sample No. 11: naked bottle, unopened bottle, without any protection, placed in a constant temperature cabinet where I kept sake, which was 5 degrees Celsius all year round,
Weight at the beginning of the experiment: 1171.5 grams
Sample No. 12: naked bottle, unopened bottle, without any protection, placed in a cool cabinet
Weight at the beginning of the experiment: 1170.5g
In the future, there is the last one:
Sample No. 13: naked bottle, open bottle, no protection, tear off the label, put it in the sun during the day, and under the light at night (this sample is to test the impact of light pollution on whiskey)
The weight at the beginning of the experiment: 1172.5g
After half a year, I will take out these wines one by one to weigh them, and see how much each bottle of wine evaporates, and you can get a phased experimental result.
However, before getting the results, I guessed it myself. I think in the experimental subjects No. 2 to 7, every measure should play a protective role, and the protection of 7 is the best; in the comparison between 8 to 10, the sealing effect of Yamazaki bottle plug No. 9 should be the best. What do you think?
Finally, I would like to thank "Baoyouli" whiskey for sponsorship and support for this experiment.
[Drinking Identity] is a self-media run by Huang Shan, a wine columnist, and aims to popularize wine knowledge in interesting ways.
