quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
You're right, wine is an exception (and an exceptional exception, at that!) but most people suppose spirits to still age well beyond their actual maturation (the barrel process) and equate the actual shelf age of the spirit to its taste and further, it's price. To my understanding, this just isn't right, and it's a way for vendors to kind of market to an ignorant clientele with way too much money to spend. You can see a 50-year old Scotch selling for $800 for example, but if it was only truly aged in its barrel for 10 years... you might be overpaying by quite a bit. I'm not 100% sure this applies to all liquors, it's just what I've gathered from reading a bit and talking purveyors who profess to know what they're talking about.
I'd love to be wrong though, if someone could tell me otherwise... |
You're wrong
The thing is, though, what type of ageing we're talking about. One of the major points of ageing in barrels is to impart special characteristics and flavor from the barrels into the drink. Clearly that isn't going to happen once the liquid is placed into glass, but there will still be other chemical reactions occurring within the drink. Now it is true that many liquors won't age in the bottle to a high degree, due to the metal caps used to seal them, though once they've been opened that's a different story. However, like wine, liquors that have a cork stopper will slowly age in the bottle (to a higher degree than the metal sealed ones), even without opening, as small amounts of air will be entering.
That all said, of course, a lot of ageing is just marketing hype. I'd say it's safe to say that the Patron ageing is exactly that.
I'd also wager a bet (just a guess, nothing to really back this up) that clearer liquids would probably age less due to having less chemicals involved. I would never put a bottle of vodka down for 10 years, but would consider it with a good scotch or bourbon. The problem is, of course, waiting
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