Open-Bottle Shelf-Life Experiment – Lagavulin 16

Lavavulin 16 Year Old Scotch Detail

My good friend Ryan at the now out of commission Value Whisky Reviews started an idea that examines a concept that whiskey drinkers have wondered about for a long time.  He wanted to determine how much the air in your bottle of opened whiskey changes the contents over time.  He called these his “Open-Bottle Shelf-Life Experiments“.  From Ryan, I have acquired an opened bottle of Lagavulin 16 Year Old Scotch and several small sample containers with whisky from the same bottle.  The idea is that the large bottle has more air interacting with the whisky and the small containers have as little air as possible to interact and manipulate the contents, thus retaining the aromas and tastes of the original whisky.

For simplicity sake, we will call the “preserved”, small container Lagavulin Whisky A and the “open bottle” Lagavulin Whisky B.  The original bottle was opened on February 15, 2012 , and the small container was filled and sealed on February 19, 2012.  I am performing the experiment on July 12, 2012, nearly five months later.

 

Experiment

Nose

Whisky A is decidedly more full-bodied than Whisky B.  It has the chocolate orange that Ryan had previously mentioned in his review.  I also totally “get” the band-aid peat references he made.  In comparison, Whisky B has a much weaker aroma, with almost an unpleasant smell.  It doesn’t seem to have lost its kick as far as alcohol content in the nose, but it has certainly lost its allure.  To be completely honest, Whisky B has a similar quality in the nose to a cheap, watered down bourbon like Virginia Gentlemen.

Whisky A is quite mouth-watering to any serious whisky fan, whereas Whisky B smells like a run-of-the-mill Scotch with not much else to it.

Taste

In the mouth, Whisky A tastes pretty watered down, but good flavor overall.  There’s a nice amount of peat and it tastes well-balanced.  Whisky B is actually pretty similar in taste, which is a positive!  Perhaps the nose is what is affected and not the taste – maybe there’s hope!  There’s a little more smoke in Whisky A, but that’s about it.

Finish

The finish for both Whisky A and Whisky B is pretty long due to the peat influence.  They both hold up pretty well and are very similar.  The only difference is that Whisky A carries more peat in the finish and Whisky B carries more generic maritime Scotch flavor.

 

Conclusion

This whisky certainly changed over time, which was very noticeable from the second I compared the nose of the two of these side-by-side.  However, I fully expected the difference to be much more extreme, and I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised, largely because bottles of whiskey can spend a gratuitous amount of time on my shelf before they are finished.

I give my friend Ryan a lot of credit for starting these experiments and digging deeper into whiskey and the way we perceive and interact with it.  I have certainly learned a lot and will continue to be inquisitive when it comes to my whiskey and the way it changes over time.

 

-Ryan

5 comments

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  1. Nice work, Ryan! Told you that you would be able to tell the difference 😉

    For the sake of completeness, what was the bottle-fill level at the time of the comparison? Thanks!

      • Ryan on August 15, 2012 at 5:45 pm
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      Well that was quick! I’d say the bottle-fill level was at about 35-40%.

      Thanks again for letting me take part in your experiments!

      -Ryan

    • Jane Martin on January 28, 2021 at 11:04 am
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    What do you think about a 3/4 full bottle that’s been open for about 3 years? My husband died 1 1/2 years ago, & I want to give this bottle to a friend. It’s been sealed, & in a dark cupboard all this time.
    Jane.
    wem.jim@gmail.com

    • Eddie Vaughn on May 7, 2021 at 4:12 pm
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    First of all, Lagavulin 16 doesn’t sit that long in my house,. Perhaps the longest has been 6 months, but to preserve the contents as best as possible, I bought cans of inert gas aerosol from Amazon. Just do a 2 second burst and then 3 short bursts of gas before you cork it. TThat purges the bottle of any air/oxygen in it. Now your 1/3 filled bottle will last and last. Here is a link to what I use: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000DCS18/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

    • Brian on December 1, 2022 at 6:41 am
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    I was actually browsing for exactly this experiment and with this exact product, amazing!

    After enjoying my first bottle of Lagavulin 16 year old malt I was bought a second but only enjoyed about 1/4 of its contents before putting it in a cupboard in its original box

    I came across it last week and thought I would try it, the cork broke leaving a plug in the bottle neck which I had to carefully take out with a cork screw

    Far from reliving the euphoria of my first bottle it looked OK but tasted disgusting, it still had its smokey aroma and still had its kick but the chemical almost greasy aftertaste was not good!

    Lesson learned, don’t leave it hanging around too long, get it drunk and enjoy it!

  1. […] via email by a whiskey enthusiast from Texas named JD regarding degradation, something I have blogged about and often pondered while looking at the bottles gathering dust on my shelf.  With his permission, […]

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