What was the last bottle you finished?

We finished off a bottle of Buffalo Trace recently. It was low so we made a couple of mint julips and poured a healthy dram to empty the bottle.

It has been a weekend of several last bottles: Friday night saw the finish of Teacher's Highland Cream. Saturday witnessed the end to a bottle of Canadian Club Small Batch Sherry Cask, and just finished today a long open bottle of Hanky Bannister.

Bulleit 95 Rye. Slowly but surely I am whittling down our 150+ open bottles. I will be content when the number is down to 30-50. In the meantime I will be doing a lot of decanting and gassing.

@cherylnifer That's a good one my admiral / wife loves the name Hanky Bannister. We are looking for that one to try. :)

Dalmore 21...sad times.

Last night I finished my bottle of Glenlivet 15. One of the more underrated malts in my opinion. Each dram got better and better. I'll be buying a replacement bottle soon.

@Victor why the decision to bring down the "open" collection? I wish I was able to have 100 open bottles at a time.

That said, I find that decanting works well for me. Having 18 full (or nearly full) 200 mL bottles is much easier to store in my cabinet then 18 bottles with only 4 fingers at the bottom. I would love to find a source for 100 mL bottles. I would probably rather pour off 2 or 3 full 100mL bottles when my open bottle gets low enough. Then pour the last bit into my Old Bastard Reserve bottle.

That said, there really is something nice about pour whisky for your friends from the original bottle . . .

@Nock: I got a dozen 100ml. bottles from my local friendly Pharmacy and they are excellent - I guess they are quite old as they have the old Bakelite tops with cork inserts; they work well and were cheap.

@Nock, yes, there really is something nice about pouring a drink for your friends from the original bottle. That is what most bothers me about decanting, actually. I am considering keeping some bottles separate from their decanted contents for show purposes...even repouring the whisky back into them just before serving, just to pour them from the original bottles. That's about as schmaltzy and romantic as I get about whisky.

I am going to be trying some 8 oz (236.6ml) and 4 oz (118.3 ml) bottles for decanting. I am ordering from SKS Bottle and Packaging in Watervliet, New York.

It will be quite awhile before I/we work our open bottles down below 100.

Aberlour 12yr Double Cask Matured. Great sherry blast from Speyside. :)

@Victor those sound like great bottles. I have long thought my 200mL and 50mL were both too little.

My wife has a "French bottle drying rack" of empty bottles. I keep my favorite finished bottles on it. If I ever have the occasion where I would want to pull the bottle down and fill it up for "presentation" purposes I am good to go! I would actually recommend it. The one we have holds 18 empty bottles.

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@Nock, the French drying rack looks nice and practical, albeit consuming of a good bit of space.

I just got my shipment of 4 oz and 8 oz bottles delivered today. Soon will be the decanting, some of it, anyway.

Finished the Glengoyne 10yr old this will be a great addition to my cabinet. :)

Was sad to bid adeiu to The Balvenie 17-year-old DoubleWood this week.

@PMessinger Is your cabinet full of empties?

Amrut Fusion and a splendid Whisky is was / is; saved a 200ml. bot.

I resisted going so far 'off shore' for a dram for a while but the example I have is splendid; so good, in fact that I'll be back!

Just finished Arran 10yr old. Great whisky I ran out and snagged another one before I ran out. :)

Just polished off a bottle of Ardbeg 10yo L13 003. Not my favorite. I will wait for this batch to sell out of the ABC stores here in Virginia before I buy again.

Celebrating our 15 yr wedding anniversary last Thursday so I decided to pull out my favorite special bottle Talisker 18 yr for desert. Sad to see the first bottle finished but I have a couple in reserve. ;)

@Lars Happy Anniversary to the two of you. I might mention that it is rather "rude" to flaunt having spares of Tali 18 when some of your buddies have none. Jonesz

@Jonesz Let me know when your in town and we can sit down and have a dram or two. Or even better the next whisky tasting. ;)

I recently finished two nice ones Buffalo Trace & Rittenhouse Rye. :)

@teebone673 it's been a while, but I thought so too. At first I thought it was very oaky. Left it alone for a while and after that I remember it was much more in balance. Would not rate it to high though.

Glenmorangie Lasanta. We didn't see eye to eye when I first opened it .. left it for 4 months and it became an entirely new animal. It will be sorely missed.

Te Bheag. I opened the bottle approximately two years ago and finished the last dram when I came across the almost empty bottle last night while cleaning out the cabinet. It tasted not bad after being open for such a long time. Nice bang for buck!

Big Peat and it gets a 'big tick' - It has to be the best value Whisky in this 'neck of the woods'! I swim around in it looking for the Port Ellen component; sometimes I think I've found it, most times, just a delicious whole!

@Nock I want to hear about your Old Bastard Reserve bottle. Is this your version of a solera 'catch all' vatting?

Just finished a bottle of Tap 357 Canadian Maple Whiskey I tried to warm up to this bottle but dang from beginning to end it was bad. :)

@PMessinger

Good thing you polished it off then. Now it can't hurt anyone ever again...

@maltygirl exactly. I keep two bottles. The Old Bastard (an old Laphroaig bottle with all the labeling gone) and the Old Bastard Reserve (old Lagavulin bottle I removed all the labeling from).

The Old Bastard has a little but of anything (including blended scotch, rum, bourbon, and rye). Is a bottle off? Down to the final finger? In it goes to the Old Bastard.

The Old Bastard Reserve is a more intentional bottle. I keep track of exactly what I put into it (both the ABV and the amount in mL). Mostly it is single malts. I also keep track of how much I drink so I can keep a running ABV (currently 42.24%). I like to keep it at about half full so that it can keep oxidizing.

I find the cure for all bad whisky is a touch more peat ;)