Corks and your whisky

I do have pieces of cork in some of my bottles but I dont bother with that. I'm looking to buy cork stopper that are made of plastics.

I had a bottle of Courvosier. The bottle was old and the cork broke in pieces when I opened it the first time. I instantly filtered the liquid through a mesh and poured over into an empty clean rice wine bottle, which was very dark and not see through. All was good, and I finished the bottle in about 4 months. But the very last dram, when I poured the last drops into the glass I got a shitload of cork that had aparently been lying on the bottom this whole time. "Wait, doesn't cork float?!" I thought, and inspected the small pieces. But to the best of my knowledge, that was cork. I even chewed it, cause I drank that last dram too. And it was just as good as the first. So I don't think cork would have any significant effect within such a short timespan (unless it reacts different somehow to whisky, than for cognac).

@cheeserandyburg The cork in your whisky is a big deal. The whisky will "eat" the cork and therefore taint your whisky. Unlike wine, whisky's abv is enough to do damage to the cork. Left long enough in the liquid the whisky will eventually begin to dissolve the cork and absorb the material into the liquid. That's also why you shouldn't store whisky horizontally.

I bought a Mackmyra The Swedish Whisky and they already have a plastic cork! Other distilleries will follow?

screw tops!!

@MCM

I read somewhere that most of the whisky's over in europe nowadays are screw tops. Here in Canada everything from Aberlour - Laphroaig is all corks. I never understood this (besides the reason for "looking good").

Corks dry out, crumble and tear up from popping them in and out from use. I would much prefer screw tops like most of the wines around here. Or if they "must" keep the corks, why not use the plastic ones?

In addition my Highland Park 12 bottle cork pops in and out with very little effort. Just another reason to stop using corks. They don't seem very reliable to me. A bottle of wine goes within one (at most 2 sittings) but a whisky bottle sits around for much longer. They should just switch to corks for wine and screw tops for scotch! Arrgg

@cheeserandyburg Agree +1

There may be some visceral emotion that goes along with "popping the cork." If you need that in your whisky experience I much prefer the synthetic corks.

I love whisky corks. I keep them and reuse them. I have a fish bowl with 300+ whisky corks. My friend's wife saw the fishbowl of corks and said "these represent a lot of money" and that got my wide to thinking... I have since moved the cork bowl out of sight. Someday I hope to have it filled with whisky corks. I figure another 6-8 years. i.imgur.com/Jrens5I.jpg

@Wodha - I think I found Waldo in there. ;)

Personally, I prefer natural cork, but if we must change due to cork shortages, I would rather have screw tops than synthetic corks. I'm concerned that the chemicals used in making the synthetic corks could potentially have a negative effect on the whisky over time.

Natural screw tops from the screw top tree?

Where's @Macdeffe - he's the cork hating king :)

Natural cork is, imo, an anachronism that's all about implying quality rather than actually effectively sealing a bottle. Synthetic corks have been researched for years and modern ones are pretty much inert from what I've read, whereas natural cork can happily fall to pieces, go bad or taint your whisky if you're one of the 'must invert bottle from time to time' crowd.

Give me a screw cap any day...