storing unopened bottles

[troll]

I'm new to this forum, and have a question regarding the storage of unopened bourbon. Is there any disadvantage or potential danger to storing unopened bottles horizontally in a wine rack? Is this preferred over upright storage on a shelf, or does it seem to make no difference?

[bluesbassdad]

From your question I gather that your screen name is apt.

Yours truly,

Dave Morefield

[BourbonJoe]

I would suggest that you DO NOT lay the bottles down. IMO the best way to store Bourbon is standing up in a cool, dark place.

Joe :usflag:

[jeff]

For bottles with screw-caps, you can store them upside-down if you like, but the conventional wisdom on this board is that bourbon should not come in contact with natural cork for an extended period of time. This is partly due to the higher alcohol content of the spirit eating away at the cork and giving the whiskey a "corked", musty taste. So I would advise not storing most bourbons on their side.

Welcome to Straightbourbon.com :toast:

[bosipipes]

Wow. I have been searching the internet for days tring to find out this answer.

THANK YOU

[gothbat]

I always assumed that storing bourbon in a cool - room temperature, dark place would be ideal. I once asked a friend of mine, who's been collecting scotch for around 12 years, about this and he told me that the light doesn't really matter so long as the light the bottles are exposed to isn't direct sunlight. He keeps his on a shelf in his kitchen and has had some of the bottles for as long as he has been collecting. I realize that he speaks from experience with scotch but I'm told it should be the same for both. I hope this is true since I don't have a dark place to keep all my bottles!

[Nebraska]

I've been storing most of my bottles in a trash can, really... dark, reasonably cool, it works out better than you would think.:skep:

As a rule and as a safe guard, my first step before storing is decanting. Usually I pour small measures, depending on the night and my mood and decant in to my belly. Once the bottle is empty, I store in the trash can. Down side to this is, the bottles seem to come up missing every Wednesday. Still trying to figure that one out:searching: Other than that the system works out fairly well.

[hollywood]

I "DITTO" Jeff's reply...with his reply, most confuse/mistake proper wine storing procedures for bourbon as well.

[cowdery]

The reality is that there isn't much you can do to hurt bourbon in a sealed bottle. However, one of the few bad things you can do is store a corked bourbon on its side, as already mentioned. That's a no-no. As for the rest, direct sunlight and heat are known to hurt liqueurs, but straight whiskey not so much. You really can pretty much store bourbon anywhere under any conditions, with just that one caveat.