My family and I were going through my grandmother’s apartment after her passing to get her estate in order. After all was said and done, I got a bunch of alcohol she had for guests mostly, including two types of whiskey (scotch and regular), some gin, and three flavors of vodka. I tried some of the Crown Royal and it didn’t taste too good. Also didn’t taste like the last glass of whiskey I had before. Of course I always hear about stuff aged 4 years or 12 years etc. so I wonder if it’s a “gone bad” thing or a me thing.
It may change taste profile depending on heat and sun/light exposure but it’s still alcohol unless the bottle is compromised and it evaporated.
Aging refers strictly to how long the alcohol was left in a barrel before being put into a glass bottle. A 10 year old bottle of scotch is still only a 10 year old even if it was bought in 1970.
I’ll add in her something I learned recently - whisky can become “corked”, ie if the stopper is made of cork, it can go bad and ruin the drink’s flavour. I thought this was just a wine thing, but apparently it can happen with whisky too.
What we know as whisky maturation is a dance between 4 interrelated processes - infusion, evaporation, oxidation, and other chemical reactions. These all happen together, and very nicely, when whisky sits in oak barrels for an extended period of time.
Colour, and oak flavour are infused into the whisky simply by sitting in the barrel. The whisky will slowly evaporate while inside the barrel as well. Volatile compounds evaporate, making the whisky smoother, deeper, and more complex with age. Fascinating chemical reactions happen between compounds in the wood, and in the whisky. As ethanol degrades lignin, for example, it creates new compounds, which themselves interact with other molecules and compounds in solution.
The age statement on a bottle of whisky refers to the time it spent in a barrel, doing those lovely things.
Common wisdom is that the whisky is done changing when it goes into glass. Certainly, infusion and evaporation are finished. But! Oxidation, and reactions between compounds in the whisky itself will continue, even in a sealed glass bottle. Usually this happens too slowly to notice, or the bottle gets drank before a change can be observed, but change certainly happens.
Long story short - whisky won’t go bad. In fact, sometimes it even goes ‘good’! I had the chance to try a young single malt, that was bottled in the 1970s. It was wonderful, and had signature aroma and flavour characteristics of a very old whisky. This is due to slow oxidation, and the glacial interaction between esters and congeners over time, which will happen no matter what vessel the whisky is in.
Whisky that has been exposed to too much oxygen, like if the bottle sits nearly empty for a long time, or has a bad seal, will often end up tasting flat and bland. But ‘good’ or ‘bad’ at this point, is a subjective matter. Only one way to find out!
You’ve obviously gotten the base level answer, but to add some color here - certain types of food, such as dried pasta, rice, beans, grains, high proof alcohol, vinegars, and basically anything frozen to name a few, never spoil in the sense that they’re unsafe to eat.
Flavor, however, is an entirely different matter. Just ask anyone who has eaten freezer burnt food.
Pretty much any high proof alcohol will fall into this category. And, if it’s unopened, it should retain most of its flavor for a very long time. Once opened, however, it can deteriorate relatively quickly, depending on how it was stored.
With the caveat that many food borne illnesses are not killed when frozen. If something was contaminated when frozen it can remain contaminated when thawed (to your point though I don’t think many things that are fine when frozen can become unsafe while frozen)
Your list of semi non-perishable foods does need some caveats about storage, because most of those things can go bad, depending on how they were stored.
Frozen meat can spoil, as not all bacterial growth stops, some just slows down a whole lot. So if Grandma threw in a store plastic wrapped tray of chicken quarters, after being in the fridge for 3 days, and now it’s 8 years later, those might not be safe for human consumption.
Stuff that was vacuum sealed, much more likely to last the long haul in the freezer, if done properly.
Long-term stored grain, when not in vacuum sealed or other airtight containers, can develop molds or other bacterial contaminations.
Improperly stored vinegar, if you try to use it…it will ruin your salad dressing, and taste like shit. But it’s pretty easy to see if vinegar has gone ick.
Can’t say I’ve ever seen moldy or spoiled vinegar, but I’ve seen the type of kitchens that would be capable of making it happen in a long enough time frame.
I’ve also never seen bad dry storage pasta or beans, but I imagine they carry the same long-term storage concerns as grains, even if they’re probably a bit more durable.
Alcohol can’t expire, expiration is a part of how it’s made. In most of these cases the expiration date is actually for the container.
If the container looks fine and nothing has gotten into it, it’s no more dangerous to you than alcohol normally is. Same goes for vinegar and many other similar things. For example honey can’t go bad in a sealed bottle, but the bottle can degrade and let things in.
Aging for whiskey and scotch is done in specialized wood barrels with specific environmental conditions, not in the bottle.
If the hard booze bottles been opened for a long time, it’s always possible some evaporation, or other slight changes have occurred that may impact taste, but still perfectly safe. Assuming it’s 80 proof and up.
Throw out open wines if you’re not comfortable determining if they’re still consumable and not spoiled.
TLDR: Toss opened bottles of wine, but any hard liquor should be safe, even if it taste is degraded.
Safe to drink, but if that drink is a pleasant memory or Grandma’s shot challenge from hell depends on how well it was kept if opened.
Grandma’s shot challenge from hell
This is so funny I laugh every time I reread it. It implies so many things.
“Gramma wasn’t no pussy sonny!”
I’m sorry about your grandmother. Given she had a stocked liquor cabinet for guests shows she was a thoughtful person. I hope you found some great memories in her belongings.
The flavor can eventually turn bad but it would usually take an extremely long time. Like decades.
Sometimes when I’m clearing out properties I’ll find a mystery bottle of booze.
If it tastes like vinegar or not anything like you’ve had before it’s no good.
If there’s enough alcohol in it, that will keep bacteria etc out, so it’s probably safe to drink. But ageing happens inside a wooden barrel or something like that. Inside of a opened bottle, it can lose or change flavor over time. But I’m not sure if that’s the case here. It’ll take some years. And there is a wide variety of tastes in whiskey, so maybe you tasted a different sort of whiskey? Or it really went bad… I’ve never had “Crown Royal”. Maybe let someone taste who knows how it’s supposed to taste.
I have drunk some decades old bottles of wine. I was worried each time that the bottle had become undrinkable, but not that it had become dangerous.
