Are there any benefits in aging Bourbon over say 5 years, after you have taken delivery?
Thanks
Ray
No.
A.
I agree, once it is bottled is is quite stable IMO.
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general answer is no, but it’s impossible that extended bottle aging – especially an open bottle – wouldn’t be affected by evaporation of water and alcohol over time.
All bets are off if the bottle is opened. Some spirits nuts I know claim that they can taste a difference in a month or two. Skeptical on that, but I have seen radical differences between the ends of Scotch bottles and fresh ones. Enough that I will not order a glass of ultra Scotch some place unless I know the turn-over is fairly high.
Light is probably the biggest enemy.
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I agree. But I do tend to prefer some of the really rascally Scotch/Bourbons after the bottle has been open for a year plus- whether it is make believe or not they seem to have mellowed a bit.
+1
not sure if they really improve but I think some do mellow out. I most recently noticed this with two bottles of eagle rare 10. First glass was the remainder of bottle one and the second glass was a fresh bottle… pretty noticeable difference IMO.
thanks for the responses, guys.
I’ll drink them young. I just figured it would be interesting to hold on to some harder to get bottles. I’ll try it, while not expecting much…
If they are harder to find bottles it doesn’t hurt to hold them unopened. I have some 20 yr/old Pappy and 16 yr/old Hirsch unopened (I bought them when I could find them). Holding them unopened doesn’t seem to make any difference.
well, these are finished with corks right. and short ones at that. so we know what happens to wine with corks. why would bourbon be any different? i’m not saying it ages or changes like wine or on a similar time scale, but it is kinda silly to think nothing happens. again, benefit, detriment, all subjective. but i guess it’s impossible that nothing happens over the course of years.
I’ve had old bottles (10+ yrs) that were identical to just-released. I’ve had stuff bottled in the 70s that showed no sign of deterioration. It makes plenty sense to stock up on them and hold them. You won’t get improvement, but they will hold easily.
You are right that it makes no sense to say nothing changes, but the amount of stuff in there is so much less than wine and pretty much all of it comes from the barrel. Those compounds are not nearly as reactive. The change is glacial and is gets expedited when you have a bottle that was opened a bunch of times.
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a true story:
My FIL is a bourbon drinker. A couple years ago, he put in tile floors through our apartment, as well as a couple other home improvement type things. He stayed with us while he was doing these things. During his stay, he went through more than a couple handles of Jim Beam. One bottle that he found at a local store was clearly 10+ years old — older style label, old price tag (cheap), etc. etc. etc… So, my FIL thought it would be interesting to taste this old Bourbon side-by-side with a “fresh” bottle. The old bottle was, as others have pointed-out will happen, much more mellow than the fresh bottle. I preferred the old bottle, mostly b/c I find JB to be rather harsh, and this old bottle really wasn’t very harsh at all. I can’t say that old bottle had developed any complexity, but it had improved, imo.
The end.
Ray,
Once the spirit is out of the cask maturation essentially ends. However I have had 20-30yr old unopened bottles of Cognac and Bourbon that were quite good. It’s hard to say whether or not they ‘improved’ but they were certainly drinking fine and I would agree with the anecdotal experiences of others that they seemed to be more mellow. A friend has a vintage Bourbon collection and the oldest of the unopened bottles are now approaching 10yrs I think, and he is in no rush to open them.
I agree with Yaacov that your biggest concern would be the negative effect that evaporation could have on them, and exposure to light is also bad.
I suggest not starting with really rascally Scotch or Bourbon 
Interesting. I have heard that the quality of Jim Beam has slipped some because of the ramp up in production of Booker’s, Basil Hayden and Knob Creek has skimmed off better barrels from going into regular Jim Beam.
I’ve been drinking through a case of 1935 d’Angerville Clos de Ducs Marc de Bourgogne over the last decade (cork finished), and all of the bottles have been sound. they do go throgh a transformation once opened, but I usually open these at dinner parties so they don’t hang around very long. I can see the possibility of bad results from bad corks, but haven’t seen it in this lot.
Hmmm, that is interesting! Possible other variables at play.
In another 50 years, it will lose its turpentine qualities
Razzing you, I really like Marc, prefer it to grappa, which tends to be more perfume-y and less complex. I don’t really see the oxygen doing anything other than polishing some edges.
I have some dewars scotch that I was given in 1996 that I have never opened. I should buy another bottle and see if there is a perceptible difference…