How Many Bottles Do You Have / Keep Open?

[Guest]

Curious as I'm starting to have quite a few open and for the first time thought to limit that number (I think about 12 right now) before opening more...   Just ordered some spray (wine) preserver to slow oxidations -- but curious if any of you have set a limit for yourselves...or not?? : )

[4rosesfan]

I don't really have any "limits" on my opens, other than bar space. At one point, I had something like 60-70 opens but now it's more like 25-30.

 

I have really zeroed in on what I like, so I'm not buying much just to try them anymore. Some of my bottles open now will be shared so others can try them.

[Saul_cooperstein]

Right now 27 American whiskies 

[Hop]

I don't limit but right now I have 44 open and have killed off 7-8 in the last 2 weeks or so - some of these I won't "kill off" in a hurry as they are LE's/Dusties and I'm in no hurry to eliminate them

 

This doesn't include Scotchs that are open as well

[dave1022]

13 hours ago, Steve L said:

 Just ordered some spray (wine) preserver to slow oxidations --

 

How necessary is this?  I've never worried about it and viewed open bottles as indefinitely stable.  How wrong am I??

[kwshannon]

I try to keep less than 10 open at a time, due to space and trying to avoid major changes in the taste after air hits it.  Some were not my favorites, so I'll pull those out, wrap the neck, and store in bunker then come back to later.  Today I have a wheater, TN, canadian, single malt, FRSBPS OES*, rye, and irish open, plus I have scotch blend, FRSBPS OBS* in the bunker.  

[Journeyman]

I have around 140 bottles of American whiskeys, scotch, other single malts, mezcal, and some other interesting spirits.  I have about 25 open and am trying to work that down a bit.  I drink about one bottle's worth across all my open bottles a month, so I'd like to be able to cycle through all my open bottles within a year to a year an a half.  So getting it down to around 12 to 18 open should be the sweet spot for me.  Yeah, I tend to overthink things...

[smokinjoe]

1 hour ago, dave1022 said:

 

How necessary is this?  I've never worried about it and viewed open bottles as indefinitely stable.  How wrong am I??

You're not wrong.  Bourbon is extremely stable in the bottle as long as you have a good seal from the cork or cap.  Open bottles can be enjoyed without change for many years if that seal is not compromised.  I might wrap the top of a corked bottle with plastic if I am not going to be visiting it for a long time, but that's about it.  Saran Wrap is acceptable.  Some use Parafilm.  I use Glads Press n Seal.

[JTaylor]

Of 86 bottles on hand, (82 Bourbon, 4 Rye) 31 are open. I'm in a "Buy and Try everything" phase right now. There are 57 line items on my inventory (a 4R  OESK and OESV would be two separate line items). I am hesitant to open too many more until I clear some out so there are still 16 that I haven't tasted yet! Then there are 30 odd other liquors (tequila, vodka, gin, rum, scotch, etc...) Good news is: if I get snowed in I'll have plenty to do! 

Edited December 18, 2016 by JTaylor
To add rest of the bar

[Clueby]

I think I have about 14 or 15 open bottles right now.

[Caskstrength]

1 bourbon open (EC12)

5 single malts open

 

Some brandies lined up for deployment soon as well.

 

Cant imagine 20+ bottles of spirits open at once, would take up a lot of space and missus wouldn't be too impressed!

 

Edited December 18, 2016 by Caskstrength

[amg]

I probably have 40 or 50 opens right now. I don't worry too much about how long they've been open.

[mbroo5880i]

3 open bourbons (OF 1920, FR SiB, OGD 114)

2 open ryes (RR 10Yr SB, WTR 101)

1 open scotch (Mac 21 Yr)

 

Six whiskies and some rum, tequila, and vodka.  Maybe a bottle of wine or two.

 

I tend to keep my open bottles to less than 10 and often find myself working to empty a bottle or two before opening another.  The number of open bottles tends to get larger when I dive into LEs or higher end bottles which I generally open when we have company or friends over.  Obviously, I don't work to empty those as quickly as I would an ER or OGD 114 which are not as expensive or as difficult to find.  I believe last year at this time I had about 15 bottles open.

[BMartin42]

About 10-12 on the family room bar and a smaller space means about 7-8 more on the man cave room bar. Some special bottles occasionally make the trip up or down the stairs.


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[BigRich]

 
How necessary is this?  I've never worried about it and viewed open bottles as indefinitely stable.  How wrong am I??

Dave, let me append what Joe said. If you have a very special bottle that you don't hit very often you might what to consider wine saver gas when it gets to 1/2 full or below. If you aren't touching but every year or so then all that headspace can have a flavor impact. A bottle is about $7 on Amazon and if it's something really special then better safe than sorry. For 95% of what I drink I don't worry about it.


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[Harry in WashDC]

3 hours ago, Caskstrength said:

1 bourbon open (EC12)

5 single malts open

 

Some brandies lined up for deployment soon as well.

 

Cant imagine 20+ bottles of spirits open at once, would take up a lot of space and missus wouldn't be too impressed!

 

My unopened ones take up as much space - bottle for bottle - as my opened ones.

 

Kidding aside, I HAVE gone through the exercise of explaining to my wife (a) why I need to have so many open (about a dozen bourbons, half a dozen ryes, and not counting liqueurs or other distilled spirits) and (b) why they all need to be close at hand in the dining room except for the two (sometimes three) in the TV room.  The result of that conversation was: unopened now get neatly stored in the basement in marked boxes, and the opened ones are being reduced in number, and that number now includes the "no more than two" in the TV room.  In sum, I learned the hard way what you already knew. 

[troyce]

Im not good with " opens" .   They die quick.

 

[Masset1982]

Apparently, 20 bottles. Cheers! 

[fishnbowljoe]

I used to have a hard time with the number of bottle I had open. At one time it was in the 30 + range. With so many bottles open, I had a hard time choosing a pour.  Yeah I know. Tough problem to have, but I have a hard enough time making up my mind about pretty much anything.  I found a BT bottle glorifier that holds 12 bottles. It turned out to be the perfect solution for me. The pics below are older ones, but y'all will see what I mean. I now usually have around 12 bottles or so open. A handle of JD (for my son) and a handle of Old Foprester won't fit, so I don't count them. 

 

Cheers! Joe

[Louisiana]

2 hours ago, Masset1982 said:

Apparently, 20 bottles. Cheers! 

 

 

Man. All you do is drink the good stuff!!!

 

Cheers, Jeff

 

 

 

[Tony Santana]

Geez, I'm almost starting to feel bad.  Almost.  Roughly 75 open bourbons, another 30-40 other whiskeys.  If I get down to less than a half a bottle to a third of a bottle I'll either work harder to polish it off or transfer to a smaller bottle.  I'll use that preserve stuff with the more expensive bottles if they've been open for a while.

[squire]

My stack of empties is higher than my stack of opens.

[flahute]

24 minutes ago, squire said:

My stack of empties is higher than my stack of opens.

How many of those empties are OGD?

[squire]

Oh, I donno, more than a few.

[Caskstrength]

2 hours ago, Tony Santana said:

Geez, I'm almost starting to feel bad.  Almost.  Roughly 75 open bourbons, another 30-40 other whiskeys.  If I get down to less than a half a bottle to a third of a bottle I'll either work harder to polish it off or transfer to a smaller bottle.  I'll use that preserve stuff with the more expensive bottles if they've been open for a while.

 

That is more open bottles than most bars - how long would it take you to get through all that?  Must be party central there!