How to Properly Store your Whisky!

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If you get into whisky collecting, you’re going to need a good place to store your bottles. A bottle of whisky can take a long time to get through, particularly if you’re only drinking it a dram at a time. Plus, don’t stacked shelves just look great?

But if your whisky’s going to be sitting there for a long time, you’d better make sure that it stays as richly coloured and flavourful as possible. Thankfully, unlike wine, there’s no major rush to finish it once the cork comes out because it finishes maturing in the barrel. But hey, we’re all about whisky perfection here, so we’ve compiled a guide on how best to store your prized possessions to ensure your tastings are the talk of the town.

Long term (and we’re talking decades here), unopened whisky can lose its colour. So maybe keep an eye on this if you’ve been saving one for a special occasion. Even then, the taste is likely to remain unchanged. The only pressing issue facing your whisky here is the cork. Because of whisky’s strong alcohol content, if you leave a bottle on its side for too long it could degrade the cork, and you’ll soon find bits of brown tree bark floating around your single malt. So keep it upright.

Once it’s open, store it in a cool dry place. Like any Scotsman, whisky isn’t used to the sun, and it may start to evaporate and change colour. For all the collectors and investors out there, the sun can also blanche the label, turning your prized Macallan 50 into an off-brand value buy.

It should also stay out of the fridge. Whisky is happy at room temperature - it might’ve been sitting in it for decades! Temperature changes can also make it go cloudy, which doesn’t have too much of an impact on taste, but might earn you an odd look or two when you tell your friends that it really is good stuff, I promise!

And you still shouldn’t leave it for too long when its opened. Definitely invest in a quality stopper if it came with a screw cap, ideally one with a vacuum seal. Even with these efforts you won’t be able to keep air out of the bottle entirely. The more whisky you drink, the more air gets in. The more air gets in, the more the character of the whisky will change.

This really is for the top 1% of careful whisky enthusiasts. But if you care enough to subscribe to a whisky newsletter, there’s a good chance you’ve joined is in that 1%. So we hope you’ve learned something!

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