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Official PCF Whisk(e)y Thread (54 Viewers)

Irish said:
Hahaha I was just chatting with @Pinkdan about this, thats the hope. Theres a bunch going on here, but I'm getting Robitussin on the finish. My hopes are a little down time helps with the sharpness all around, there's good potential here.
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Hard Truth is literally about 60 miles from me. Super awesome setup. Whiskey is decent, not spectacular. The Sweet Mash Rye does open up and gets fruity. At least my bottle did.
 
Jameson Black Barrel. I dont even like whiskey. But my buddy had a bottle on a trip to Winstar. It was the best ive tried. Im more of a Vodka man myself
 
Irish said:
Hahaha I was just chatting with @Pinkdan about this, thats the hope. Theres a bunch going on here, but I'm getting Robitussin on the finish. My hopes are a little down time helps with the sharpness all around, there's good potential here.
Click to expand...
Hard Truth is literally about 60 miles from me. Super awesome setup. Whiskey is decent, not spectacular. The Sweet Mash Rye does open up and get fruity.
 
Cracked open a new bottle for my birthday pour. Man, this is really good! Even better than I expected.

20241102_211425.jpg
 
Thank y’all for the great recommendations. As far as neck pours, which I know are inaccurate, I like:

Knob Creek 7 Rye > Wild Turkey Rare Breed > Knob Creek 12 > 1792 Small Batch > Old Forrester 1920 (harsh!!! But funnily this was my friend’s favorite). I have a WT101 but haven't tried it yet
 
I am a week'ish dry. My plan is not to have a drink until Davids meet up. Then of course I plan on overdoing it lol.
 
elemeno said:
Thank y’all for the great recommendations. As far as neck pours, which I know are inaccurate, I like:

Knob Creek 7 Rye > Wild Turkey Rare Breed > Knob Creek 12 > 1792 Small Batch > Old Forrester 1920 (harsh!!! But funnily this was my friend’s favorite). I have a WT101 but haven't tried it yet
Click to expand...
I'll probably get some flack for telling you this, but there is absolutely zero difference between the whiskey at the top of the bottle, and all the rest of the whiskey in the bottle. If that were the case, then why not just shake the bottle up for a while before you open it? I'm convinced that the term "neck pour" was devised as some kind of cruel joke by those who know better, and are trying to make new whiskey drinkers believe it so they can laugh at us. Removing the cork, pouring a little out, and letting a little air in will not do anything to the rest of the whiskey in the bottle over a short period of time.

If you don't believe me, then analyze the process of distilling, aging and bottling spirits. Throughout the entire process, there is always air in contact with the whiskey. All the years that it is aging, air is continuously entering and leaving the barrels. When the barrels are dumped, the spirit is exposed to a lot of air. When barrels are blended, they are exposed to air. Do you really think letting in a small amount of air for a few days, or even a few weeks is going to change the taste of a whiskey that is 2-10 or more years old? If that were really the case, then once the master distiller has tasted from a barrel, and determined that it has reached the point in it's aging where it is just perfect, then don't you think they would take great care to insure that it doesn't further mix with the air prior to bottling?

So no, the little bit of air that goes into the bottle when you first open it is not going to make the whiskey taste materially different next week than it does this week. What does change is your perception of the spirit. The parameters and variables that encompass your drinking experience will change. You consumed different foods and drinks on each of the days. This will change how things taste. You may be drinking at a different time of day. Your health or your state of mind could be different. All these things can impact your perception of what you are drinking.

What will happen over time is that water, alcohol and other volatiles may evaporate from the bottle. And eventually, the taste of the whiskey could change, and may actually get worse. Especially over long periods of time and after the bottle is more than half empty. Many whiskey drinkers will take a particularly special, high dollar whiskey, one that they may want to keep for a year or more after opening, and pour it from the original bottle into a smaller bottle after drinking it down past the halfway point. To some degree, this will lessen the amount of empty space in the bottle for evaporation to take place. But these changes happen over many months or years. Not days or weeks.

I was a noob myself a few years ago. And I heard people write and talk about neck pours. So I did the research, and I spoke to some whiskey experts. Every one that I trust told me there is no such thing. And common sense tells me the same.
 
My understanding was neck pour was shorthand for pour soon after opening a bottle, before this happened

TX_Golf_N_Poker said:
What will happen over time is that water, alcohol and other volatiles may evaporate from the bottle
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Not literally the liquid at the top of the bottle. Or at least that’s how I thought I was using it, good to know if that’s mot how the community uses it :ROFL: :ROFLMAO:

I’ve had a couple other bottles of whiskey taste tremendously better weeks after first opening. I’m excited to revisit the OF 1920 later on.
 
TX_Golf_N_Poker said:
I'll probably get some flack for telling you this, but there is absolutely zero difference between the whiskey at the top of the bottle, and all the rest of the whiskey in the bottle. If that were the case, then why not just shake the bottle up for a while before you open it? I'm convinced that the term "neck pour" was devised as some kind of cruel joke by those who know better, and are trying to make new whiskey drinkers believe it so they can laugh at us. Removing the cork, pouring a little out, and letting a little air in will not do anything to the rest of the whiskey in the bottle over a short period of time.

If you don't believe me, then analyze the process of distilling, aging and bottling spirits. Throughout the entire process, there is always air in contact with the whiskey. All the years that it is aging, air is continuously entering and leaving the barrels. When the barrels are dumped, the spirit is exposed to a lot of air. When barrels are blended, they are exposed to air. Do you really think letting in a small amount of air for a few days, or even a few weeks is going to change the taste of a whiskey that is 2-10 or more years old? If that were really the case, then once the master distiller has tasted from a barrel, and determined that it has reached the point in it's aging where it is just perfect, then don't you think they would take great care to insure that it doesn't further mix with the air prior to bottling?

So no, the little bit of air that goes into the bottle when you first open it is not going to make the whiskey taste materially different next week than it does this week. What does change is your perception of the spirit. The parameters and variables that encompass your drinking experience will change. You consumed different foods and drinks on each of the days. This will change how things taste. You may be drinking at a different time of day. Your health or your state of mind could be different. All these things can impact your perception of what you are drinking.

What will happen over time is that water, alcohol and other volatiles may evaporate from the bottle. And eventually, the taste of the whiskey could change, and may actually get worse. Especially over long periods of time and after the bottle is more than half empty. Many whiskey drinkers will take a particularly special, high dollar whiskey, one that they may want to keep for a year or more after opening, and pour it from the original bottle into a smaller bottle after drinking it down past the halfway point. To some degree, this will lessen the amount of empty space in the bottle for evaporation to take place. But these changes happen over many months or years. Not days or weeks.

I was a noob myself a few years ago. And I heard people write and talk about neck pours. So I did the research, and I spoke to some whiskey experts. Every one that I trust told me there is no such thing. And common sense tells me the same.
Click to expand...
Lies No GIF
 
Oxygen is a funny thing, and quite reactive compared to all other particles in air. I imagine very little of it touches the whiskey as it ages in the barrel. There is brief exposure when the whiskey is dumped before bottling. Bottled whiskey has very little head space, thus relatively little oxygen. Then, a bottle opens, the seal is broken, the swill-of-a-neck-pour is choked down, fresh oxygen rushes into the bottle and reacts with the whiskey molecules, changing the flavor is subtle and delicious ways. It’s all part of the magic that goes into that spirit we all love, whiskey.
 
I will say that 90-95% of the bottles I drink, I don't get much in the way of changes from the first pour. But there are some with a noticeable difference - the KC 120p store picks, Larceny BPs and Still Austin BP bourbon come to mind.
 
I’m now curious how y’all like to enjoy your whiskey/bourbon. Do you let it sit a while after you pour it? For how long? And how long does it take you to finish a dram? Do you notice changes in its flavor profile over this duration?
 

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