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I've got around 25 bottles open. That is, all bottles in my cabinet are open. Actually no, 1 bottle is still unopened. But it belongs to my lady. She told me she'd give it away as soon as I merry her)))
12 years ago 1Who liked this?
Well - right now - I have 23 bottles open...About 11, or 12 more are tucked away to be enjoyed at a later date.
12 years ago 0
Once I have about 5 bottles open, I start to feel guilty about opening another. Right now I have 3 bourbons and one scotch, but I'm looking for another scotch to purchase!
I see most people here with a lot more bottles than that, but that just stresses me out. I don't like having too many open.
12 years ago 0
So after reading these responses, I've come to the conclusion that I'm completely out of control. Besides the 500+ bottles in the bunker (closed), I have somewhere around 135 bottles open. At present, I am trying to reduce that number by hitting the low fill bottles. My drinking is very eclectic as I pour whatever strikes me at the moment; Bourbon, Rye, Scotch, Blended, Irish, Indian, Japanese, etc. It keeps my interest piqued.
12 years ago 1Who liked this?
Wow, you all are big time! I generally have 2-3 open at any one time. Sometimes it gets down to 0.
12 years ago 1Who liked this?
I like to keep about 10 bottles open. That is more than enough variety for me. I find that most heavily peated whiskies, esp. Ardbegs, lose something after being open for more than a few months. Just my opinion...
12 years ago 1Who liked this?
I have 3 scotches and 1 bourbon. I would have more but my budget doesn't allow it
12 years ago 0
@Onibubba Well, if it makes a difference, I second your opinion about peated whiskies degrading some weeks or months after opening - e.g. the bulk of the smoke disappearing in Ardbeg Ten after just 2 or 3 weeks.
12 years ago 0
14 bottles currently with about a dozen (not counting duplicate bottles) sitting on standby. I try not to have too many bottles open at any one time, especially full 700-750ml bottles. I hate oxidzation more often then I like it. Right now though I've also got 9 100ml sample bottles open.
I think the important thing is to always have some standby bottles so that when you finish an open bottle you have something else that you can crack open to take it's place!
12 years ago 0
After a stroll over to the shelf where we keep the open bottles, the count is 13.
12 years ago 0
Currently I have 19 bottles open and 1 waiting to be opened. I usually have around 20 bottles open at any given time and can't keep a bottle unopened for too long, it just doesn't feel right. I always keep a good mix in and once a bottle gets half way down I feel the need to get a replacement ready. I like to share with my friends so some bottles can get polished off very quickly! I am getting ready to replace soon as I feel I am running low!
12 years ago 0
I got 8 bottles open plus approx. 25 smaller ones (50-200ml). Not much closed, but I am willing to finish at least some of the samples before opening the next one.
It's so tough to be a whisky fan!
12 years ago 2Who liked this?
Make it 14 open bottles. :-) I brought my bottle of Johnnie Walker Double Black to the Potluck tasting at Julio's tonight.
12 years ago 0
I have over 80 bottles open - as with music I adapt the Whisky to my mood and therefore I like to have a wide selection - the other bottles are closed for future enjoyment. As some of the bottles are open more than two years I use a inert gas (private preserve) to protect the spirit from oxidizing and it works pretty well.
12 years ago 1Who liked this?
@maltster Good to know at least one person has had a positive experience with Private Preserve, do you find you have to do anything special when you pour a dram from a preserved bottle e.g. tilt the glass and blow off any gas that might be there, or do you think that the gas doesn't affect the poured dram in any way?
12 years ago 0
@systemdown, I never had any problems with the inert gas and as it is completely odourless it never affected my nosing or tasting although I admit that I occasionally blew in the glass to remove the gas. I even did a side by side comparison with and without gas and there was no difference in ell or taste of the same Whisky. I never heard anything negative about inert gas and my experiences are very good.
12 years ago 1Who liked this?
I have about 5 or 6 open bottles at any given moment, mostly due to practical reasons. I simply do not have any room to store my open bottles properly.
But even if I had the room, I don't think I would have more than 10 open bottles at the same time. I buy bottles of whisky faster than I finish them and I'm a bit wary of too much oxidation, since I don't bother with decanting or using inert gasses.
So you see @SquidgyAsh, I have plenty of standby bottles this way. :)
12 years ago 1Who liked this?
@bourbondork How do you manage to preserve so many bottles?! Sounds like a daunting task to say the least.
12 years ago 0
@maltster Great, thanks, I feel more inclined to give it a go now, I really would like to have more open bottles!
12 years ago 0
@systemdown, I have just started using the Private Preserve myself, so it is too early for me to have much experience for feedback to give to you. The wine people for whom it was originally designed give it astoundingly good grades in their customer feedback. I should think that the wine people would be just as fussy in their critiques as would be the whisky buffs.
12 years ago 1Who liked this?
@victor, you won´t regret it. I used it first with wine and it worked very good so I use it with Whisky since two years and no complaints.
12 years ago 1Who liked this?
@maltster, most excellent to hear about your good experiences with the Private Preserve. I would like to work down my 150 open bottles to something like 50-80 in the near future. One of the reasons I have so many open bottles, particularly of bourbon, is that bourbon is so relatively inexpensive here that for the same cost of my wife and I getting a couple of drinks out at a nice place, we can buy and have a bottle of the same whiskey. The other reason I have so many open bottles is the same as yours: I want to have a very wide range of whiskies available to me for my enjoyment tuned to the exact mood I am in...and there are many of them that I love a lot.
12 years ago 1Who liked this?
My enthusiasm for whisky woke up the very moment I had my first single malt without ice. I knew then that I would probably start buying bottles regularly. I made a rule for myself that I should finnish a bottle before getting a new one. That was 2 months ago, and now I have 5 open bottles. I read the replies in this thread and think to myself "omg is that where I'm heading?!"....fair enough, there road there seems to be a pleasant one.
12 years ago 3Who liked this?
@NilsG ...yes, you are headed down that dark and scary road... :) Beware...I too was like you in the youth of my whisky fascination (ok, so it was only 20 months ago). I vowed to keep a limited # of bottles open at any one time, and no more than 10 (ha, ha, who was I kidding).
Currently 81.6% of my cabinet bottles (31 of 38) are open. I hope to get under 30 open, and keep it there, but I forsee that the next bottle kill (an HP12) will likely 'force' me to open another two bottles or so. The slippery slope needs some salt put down...at some point.
12 years ago 0
@Pudge72 I was afraid of that. But I guess there isn't much one can do about it. What's been tasted cannot be untasted, there's no going back. But at least my wife and the little available space will set social and physical limits, respectively, for how far I can go. Unless I start hiding bottles....
12 years ago 1Who liked this?
I have always 15 to 20 bottles of whisky in my cabinet. Most of them are open. As opposed to tryimg not to open to many bottles, I tend to limit the number of whikies I buy.
12 years ago 0
I have 10 open, and none unopened. I am like many others and can't leave an untried scotch alone for long. I would have to say the longest opened bottle would be about 2 years, maybe 3. I haven't noticed a decline in the flavor of any of them, but I might simply not be noticing the changes. However, when I replace one I have just finished with the same thing, which I often do for favorites, I can't say I notice a big difference. Perhaps others are more sensitive to such variations.
This has been an interesting thread. I have not thought much about the added effect of oxygen on a progressively smaller sample when the bottle gets lower and lower. That is something I will have to look for when I replace bottles. Perhaps I will replace a few before running out so I can compare. Or buy two of the same at the same time and compare the old one to the unopened one. I will also start writing the date date opened on he bottom of the bottle, just out of interest.
12 years ago 0
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