How many bottles do you have opened at the sa

@konadan1141

It's not really how many, but what you do with them. As long as you don't let the spirit oxidize you should be ok.

If you drink rapidly from a bottle, and finish it in a month or 2, you probably don't need to do anything. If you're like me and always open new stuff, oxygen-free gas can protect it for a long time.

High proof stuff is more stable.

I probably have 30-40 bottles open right now. it's a never-ending battle.

That depends. How long are you going to keep them open? There are members here who have 50 or 100 bottles open at at time. Personally I don't get through my bottles very quickly, so I prefer to only have about 10 open at once.

konadan1141, maximum bottle conservation means minimal variety available to you to drink. I place a very high value on having a whisk(e)y available for every mood.

I have 100+ bottles open, but almost all of them that are not high ABV or high peat and brine are decanted into small air space smaller bottles for preservation. Ideally I would like to have no more than 30 to 40 open at once, even in decanted form, but it will take multiple years to work off our current supply of open bottles, if it ever happens.

First, I don't count the ones I have poured off into little bottles for the future.

That said, I have about a dozen open at the moment. I'd like to have fewer, so I'm planning to not open any new ones for quite a while.

On that scale, I'm not worried about degradation. For me, it's more about really getting to know each bottle and walking away with a good sense memory of each one I finish. I find that it's hard to develop that familiarity with a given bottle when it's in rotation with many other similar bottles. It's better for me to have, say, just one peater, one neutral whisky, maybe one sherried whisky, and maybe one bourbon on the go at any time. Then as I spend, say, two months with that one peater as my one and only peated whisky, I know it well by the time it's done.

I have 50 open bottles (and I don’t use private preserve gas) along with 40 bottles decanted into 200mL bottles, and over 100 decanted 50mL bottles. I am a proponent of decanting into smaller bottles.

I believe that a noticeable change in flavors (not necessarily good or bad) can begin in the first week, but will then plateau for quite some time. I have had bottles open for 3 or 4 years that are just as good as when then had been open for a month.

However, once a bottle reaches the half way mark (and below) I begin to notice a more rapid degradation of the flavors, but there are certainly exceptions to the rule. Having performed my own private experiments, I believe that keeping whisky in a full bottle (200mL, 100ml or 50mL) can preserve the integrity of the liquid for years.

Whiskies that are sherry matured typically get better with air. Rye whiskey almost always gets better with air. Only peated whiskies tend to lose some of their peatiness after a few weeks of being open. However, very few people (other than myself) tend to lament this. Most would tend to say that the sharp peat balances out in the first few weeks. I have had a bottle of Ardbeg Supernova SN2010 open for almost 4 years – without gas – and I would say it is as good as it has ever been (which is fantastic in my book).

My advice is to open what you want. Don’t worry about any deterioration. You will notice it when you notice it – if ever – and then you can decided how you might handle your next bottle differently.

I've got perhaps a dozen open bottles so about 50% of my humble collection. None of them gassed. I enjoy coming back to a bottle from time to time and note it's progress (or deterioration). A'bunadh batch 47 for example started off marvelous, developed a bad, waxy note after a year which then dissipated and sprung it back to greatness.