Why is my scotch going bad?

[Franky]

Alright, new to the whole forum and signed up just for this specific problem i've experience. I got turned on to scotch about 2 years ago, johnny walker black to be exact. Liked it but I was a college kid so couldn't afford it on the regular basis, I moved down to Lauders. I know, dirt cheap, disgusting, has no place on this page. Nevertheless.... point being, I drink lauders a lot and then when i feel special or have a bit of cash i grab some Dewar's White Label. So... over the holidays I new i had some time off and i opted to grab a half gallon of Lauder's since I was doing a whole lot of nothing. I figured it'd get me through the week, I had no work so.... yea. Basically I cracked it, didn't hit it real hard, I kept it sealed, but I probably drank it for 5 days and then it sat for another 2 or 3, so roughly a week passes and there's a good 6 ounces left. I'm drinking this stuff and I can taste a "distinct" sediment. I was thicker tasting and I felt a heavy feeling of a "graininess" on my teeth with every sip. Understand I'm a fairly grizzled young man to be accustomed to drinking this stuff on the regular basis, but it was god awful. Further more, I purchased some Dewar's white label about two nights ago, so it was opened 48 hours prior to this post. When I opened it I drink about 4 to 5 oz out of it, not much at all. Sealed it up, didn't touch it last night, got into it tonight though. And I'm experiencing the same grainy sediment feeling I had from before. I don't think it's the air to scotch ratio or evaporation, i keep the cap on the bottle in between pouring it so it's not like my bottles are open for hours at a time. Now one thing that I think may be a factor is that It's kept in my basement, both bottles were. I live in michigan, it's winter, my basement probably gets down to 50 or maybe 40 degrees at night, just a guess. I don't know if that would damage the scotch or not. I've been drinking the stuff for 2 years and never have experienced this problem before this past month. So I'm wondering if anyone else has had this happen, i've found nothing online so far. Thank you in advance for any input you may contribute. Sorry if I'm just bothering the whole whisky.com community.

-Frank

[jwise]

I can't help. I've never heard of anything like this happening.

[nitehawk55]

I don't know what to say either .

Are you storing it in a cool place upright so the cork isn't in contact with the contents ? I could see changes happening long term but not in the short time you are experiencing .

Hopefully someone with some idea will chime in .

[jwise]

The whisky he is mentioning don't come with corks - think 'screw caps.'

[Darko]

That's weird, I've never come across that problem.

[Goodfella]

Is there any visual change? or is it only taste....

[505Gibbs]

That's weird, I've never come across that problem.

I'm in the same vein as Darko on this question. Waaaaaay too quickly for something like this to even begin to occur - if at all.

[blenderm]

Silly question but do you have teenage kids???????

[jwise]

Silly question but do you have teenage kids???????

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAA!! !!!

Hilarious...

[Darko]

I found this info about chill filtering;

"But what exactly is chill filtering and what happens during the process?
Chill filtering means that the whisky is cooled down to around 0 degrees
Celsius and is passed through a metal filter. The cooling and filtering
makes it possible to remove normally occurring fatty acids and some proteins
and esters. When the whisky is chilled, the unwanted substances clog
together and the increased particle size makes it possible to filter them
out. As a side effect, the cooling also makes it possible to remove bigger
particles such as coal fragments from the cask. The amount of discarded
particles depends on how fast the whisky is pumped through the filter; a
higher pressure and thus speed filters out fewer particles while a lower
pressure removes more particles. It is also possible to control the process
by varying the thickness of the filter or by using a series of
interconnecting filters. The temperature may vary between different
distillers and bottlers; blended whisky is often chilled to –4 degrees
Celsius because of the low natural concentration of fatty acids in the
grain."


With the info given in your original post, this is something that may be happening to your whisky. I know this may be a long shot, but perhaps where you keep the whisky in your basement is colder than you think. Also, given the fact that it's only happened recently to 2 different bottles, of different brands leads me to think that it may be getting cool enough to precipitate out certain elements of the whisky.