independant Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 I have a bottle of Woodford Reserve that I have not sampled from in a while and it has turned. I bought the bottle in March and have not opened it in months and I opened it today and it is terrible. I compare it to welding fumes/ electrical fire on the nose and the taste in your mouth when you are at a car show and the car is burning rubber. Totally undrinkable. This bottle has been in the metal case that I bought it in sense maybe May of this year when I last poured a drink from it. How did this bottle turn so bad so quick? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. François Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 Could it have been bad from the start and you just didn't notice on the first drink? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkEdwards Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 I have a bottle of Woodford Reserve that I have not sampled from in a while and it has turned. I bought the bottle in March and have not opened it in months and I opened it today and it is terrible. I compare it to welding fumes/ electrical fire on the nose and the taste in your mouth when you are at a car show and the car is burning rubber. Totally undrinkable. This bottle has been in the metal case that I bought it in sense maybe May of this year when I last poured a drink from it. How did this bottle turn so bad so quick?We've replaced Dan's Woodford Reserve with Folgers Crystals. Let's see what happens... :skep: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Res/st-or Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 I never cared much for Woodford anyways.... All the more reason for me not to buy it.Could bourbon go bad in such a short amount of time? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
etohchem Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 Do you have childeren or young adults or even older adults who are not supposed to drink your Woodford. I am in no way impinging on the honesty of your housemates and please do not take offense. Many bottles are returned that have had coke, tea, coffee, or just water added back to them to replace a missing sample and bring back to volume. Etohchem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
independant Posted December 2, 2009 Author Share Posted December 2, 2009 Do you have childeren or young adults or even older adults who are not supposed to drink your Woodford. I am in no way impinging on the honesty of your housemates and please do not take offense. Many bottles are returned that have had coke, tea, coffee, or just water added back to them to replace a missing sample and bring back to volume. Etohchem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cowdery Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 The reason Etohchem suggested that explanation is that there are very few things that can 'turn' a bottle of straight whiskey. Deliberate adulteration, as Etohchem suggested, is one of them. A bad cork is another and a lot of exposure to air, like by leaving the bottle unstoppered for an extended period of time, is a third. That's about it. Temperature extremes won't do it. The alcohol would ignite before it was harmed in any other way by heat. Whiskey simply doesn't go bad. In a properly sealed bottle it can remain unchanged for decades, regardless of the storage conditions. Another possibility is that you just don't like the stuff and the more you think about how much you don't like it the worse it tastes. I'm not trying to put this on you or to cast aspersions on anyone who may have been in your home, but whiskey simply does not just 'go bad' spontaneously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
independant Posted December 3, 2009 Author Share Posted December 3, 2009 Thanks Chuck.I was thinking heat but now I have checked that one off the list. My house is not at all a high traffic area with only one person that I drink with and he wouldn't sabatoge the bottle, he has open riegn of my bottles and doesn't have to ask as I don't at his house so I am going to cross that off the list as well. The cork seems fine and makes that delightful pop sound when I remove it so I have to figure that it is not air entering into the bottle. This bottle has never been left on its side so I could not be cork taint. I remember liking this just fine so I don't think that my tastes have gone south that fast. So I am back to square one. Thanks for everyones input maybe I will never figure this out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BBQ+Bourbon Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 According to this boards foremost expert, cork taint has nothing to do with bottle orientation. That expert being etochem. In response to a post of mine, he explained that cork taint is a product of the trees from which the cork comes. Search his posts if you would like any more info on that subject. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spun_cookie Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 According to this boards foremost expert, cork taint has nothing to do with bottle orientation. That expert being etochem. In response to a post of mine, he explained that cork taint is a product of the trees from which the cork comes. Search his posts if you would like any more info on that subject.This is true for a bad cork, but if you keep your juice on its side, it will eat the cork Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TNbourbon Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 Not that hard to figure: you don't like Woodford Reserve -- at least, not the version currently bottled. Join the club.The taste/sense you describe sounds metallic to me. The metal is copper, from those much-extolled copper, pot stills which produce such mediocre whiskey. I note that you say you last poured from this bottle in May, which I additionally note is c. 2 months after you registered here as a member.Is it possible you bought into the hype of Woodford Reserve when you bought it, but have now sampled/discovered/discussed many other bourbons you really DO like, and now can't remember why you originally found the WR acceptable?Just askin' ('cause, as you can tell, I ain't no fan of today's Woodford Reserve, however much I enjoyed the Old-Forester-honey-barrels version). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BBQ+Bourbon Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 This is true for a bad cork, but if you keep your juice on its side, it will eat the corkThanks for the correction, Em. I just realized that I don't know that Truman said any such thing. He did say that the bacteria that cause taint are present in the cork before the juice is in the bottle. From that I ASSuMEd that orientation had nothing to do with taint.:skep: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cowdery Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 Cork taint and cork-related fouling from too much contact between the whiskey and the cork are two different things. A bad cork can damage the whiskey without it having direct contact and you wouldn't necessarily be able to tell by how the cork looks or performs. Likewise, leave a bottle with the whiskey in contact with the cork and even if the cork is perfectly good, the whiskey will dissolve it and that's not good for the whiskey either.That said, true cork taint is extremely rare.Tim's analysis seems sound, as it generally is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jburlowski Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 We've replaced Dan's Woodford Reserve with Folgers Crystals. Let's see what happens... :skep: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ruby K Posted December 3, 2009 Share Posted December 3, 2009 Just askin' ('cause, as you can tell, I ain't no fan of today's Woodford Reserve, however much I enjoyed the Old-Forester-honey-barrels version). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
independant Posted December 3, 2009 Author Share Posted December 3, 2009 I was able to sample some Woodfords today and I am checking my taste off the list of reasons that this bottle tastes like crap. While I still don't love Woodford it was how I remembered it. I looked back through old posts today to hopefully find something that can help me figure this out. I know some people treat the idea of cork taint like catching that 200 pound catfish. (Its out there, its rare, I have caught a lot of fish but I've never seen it.)So I am going to do an experiment. I have the bottle still and if this cork messed up this bourbon it would figure that it would destroy another bourbon. Back during the Kentucky Derby the last time I sampled from this bottle I saw a very nice picture of Woodford Reserve on its side with a Mint Julep next to it. I tried to duplicate this picture and did lay this bottle on its side for maybe 10 to 20 minutes. I plan to fill this bottle with another bourbon (something cheap) and leave it on its side for 15 minutes and then place it back into the metal container that it came in and let it sit for a while and see if this new bourbon turns too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeff Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 I had the same thing happen once with a bottle of Old Pogue. Drank half the bottle and it was fine. Put it away on the shelf for a while, came back to it, and suddenly it tasted musty and foul. I never could explain it, though the Pogue's were nice enough to offer to replace the bottle. I declined, as I had already drank half of it, so I finished it off in Leslie's mixed drinks:70358-devil: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gillman Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 I think the cases of cork taint are very rare but they do happen, and when they do, you know it. This is not some slight earthy or musty taste, but a strong, acrid, cork taste - like cork on steroids - that effaces most of the taste of the drink. Scientists have identified the source, it is some chemical that normal processing should take out of the cork, or somehow it gets contaminated. In 35 years of drinking spirits I think this only happened twice, and the last time, I just threw out the bourbon.Gary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BourbonJoe Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 so I finished it off in Leslie's mixed drinks:70358-devil: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theDon Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 Nice Guy Joe :usflag: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cowdery Posted December 5, 2009 Share Posted December 5, 2009 Hey my wife is the main source for disposal of bad bottles too. Diet Coke tastes musty with just a hint of ass anyway, so she doesn't notice the off flavors of the bourbon. That's incredible, Don. How did you know that's Diet Coke's new slogan? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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