The Whiskey God has smiled....

[sigsauer]

how hot does the attic typically get?

[spectrrr]

Originally Posted by stearns

Thanks for the update Francis, looking forward to sharing a smoke with you stateside when you move back

I was thinking that might happen at Shack, but it's looking increasingly unlikely that I'll be back in time for Shack this year. Unless things come through earlier than planned (waiting on the visa for my wife to get approved).

Originally Posted by sigsauer

how hot does the attic typically get?

That's been a big question in my mind as well. It's tough to say. The attic was mostly insulated, but not particularly well ventilated. If I had to pull a number out of the air, I'd be tempted to guess 90-95 f. It didn't fluctuate too much. The bottles being stored inside of the bottle box and the wooden crate likely helped to regulate humidity levels at the bottle point.

The attic was in Ohio, so fairly typical northern weather, a month of "summer", but not the 110 degree Arizona summers . Most likely before that (pre-2000) it was in a Massachusetts wine cellar.

It doesn't appear that the bottles have suffered much of any loss to evaporation, but I haven't inspected all the bottles. I kept the case "intact" in the event that a collector wanted to buy the whole thing complete, as-is. But if it came down to selling off bottles individually, or if someone on here was interested, I think the only thing to do would be to open a bottle for revision and my own drinking. Otherwise, not knowing the complete storage history of the case, there's no other way to really know about the quality, and I'd hate for that knowledge to come at someone else's expense :/

Best info I could dig up googling regarding whiskey storage temps. Everyone says cool dry, but since whiskey is distilled at high temps already, others have noted that temp doesn't affect it much (but constant fluctuations do). This was the only real solid answer that I could find which explained the WHY cooler temps are recommended. Maybe it's B.S., IDK, seems reasonable to me. I noticed very little talk about storage temps browsing the old whiskey websites, so if it were more important than evaporation levels, I would have expected more chatter on it.

Why does heat affect Scotch? It’s really a mixture of heat and humidity but it has to do with evaporation. Scotch, unlike wine, doesn’t mature in the bottle so there’s really not an “ideal” temperature (unlike wine, which is said to mature best between 55° and 60°F). You want to keep it fairly cool because a higher, dryer temperature will result in faster evaporation if the seal of the cork is not 100%.

[TheTraveler]

Thank you for the update!


If you ever decide to sell one or more of those bottles you might consider contacting Ralfy. He's a well-known reviewer of Scotch whiskies (and other liquors) on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/user/ralfystuff

Here's a review he did comparing 1960's and 2000's Johnnie Walker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNw7muIbQX0