Aging in Bottle?

[greenbob]

Last summer someone told me that a couple of workers in a local grocery store took four bottles of whiskey, and instead of putting them out to sell, kept them in a storage area to "age." The idea was that they were going to raise the value of this whiskey by aging it some more years. I responded that I thought that aging to improve flavor ends when the whiskey is taken out of the barrel, and that aging in the bottle will not necessarily improve the whiskey. I can see how aging in the bottle could change the whiskey over a number of years, but why wouldn't it be as likely to get worse as to get better? Does anyone know if there is any reason to think that what these people were doing was a wise thing to do? Does whiskey improve simply from aging in the bottle?

[musher]

No.

[bobbyc]

The only reason to hang on to a particular bottling of bourbon and is the angle some of us play, is saving a bottling that is no longer available or some vintage that is especially good in a certain year. That said, I really don't have an end game for some of mine, they get traded at times, when I purchase any bourbon it is something I can afford to have around and passing it on to make a buck isn't the first order of business.

[cowdery]

As Bobby says, holding back some EWSB, for example, so you have several vintages in stock, may make some sense, but it seems doubtful that any theoretical additional markup would exceed the inventory carrying cost.

As for true "aging," whiskey does not (in any significant sense) age in the bottle. In fact, it can remain unchanged indefinitely.

Don't rule out the possiblity that these workers are...what's the word?...morons.