Old Alcohols
'Certain spirits, like absinthe and Chartreuse, continue to age in the bottle.'
On December 12, 2012, the brand folks at Tanqueray decided to celebrate the unusual date (and Frank Sinatra's birthday) in an unusual manner -- by cracking open a 40-something bottle of Tanqueray. The event took place at the unassuming Mulberry Street Bar in New York's Little Italy, and gave a lucky few the chance to sip martinis and gimlets made with the sort of stash that generally gets tossed when your grandfather moves into the nursing home.
"The 1960s were a great time for drinking, before the privations of the '70's and '80s," Tanqueray global brand ambassador Angus Winchester told the small, thirsty crowd. While Sinatra loved his Gordon's Gin and various blended Scotch whiskies, he was also known to opt for Tanqueray on occasion. In fact, Old Blue Eyes had thrown back a few drinks at the very bar where we were getting sloshed.
Winchester brought out a number of precision instruments from the '60s, including a "martini scale," used for crafting the perfect drink (in this case, the American Standard Dry Martini with a 4:1 ratio of gin to vermouth). He then hoisted the old-timey Tanq and started pouring. "Making a martini is not just a ritual, but a way of life."
The gin -- which dates to somewhere between 1966 and 1970, based on the labeling -- was provided by a collector. It had mellowed and softened with age. Winchester and his team also uncovered a '60s-era bottle of Noilly Prat dry vermouth to go with, but it hadn't withstood the test of time, being now hollow, oily and slightly vinegared. "We would love to think everything gets better in the bottle," says Winchester. "But that's not the case. In the gin, the coriander and some of the other botanicals have mellowed. But the juniper is still bright, front and center."
Quaffing antique booze stashes has become a "thing" of late. In 2010, divers from Sweden and Finland found intact Champagne bottles in a 230-year-old shipwreck below the surface of the Baltic Sea. Naturally, they popped a bottle (valued at around $80,000) and found it to be "a very sweet Champagne" with notes of tobacco and oak. South Pole explorer Ernest Shackleton left behind, it turned out, three crates of Mackinlay's Rare Old Highland Malt whisky, under the floorboards of his team's Antarctic base camp hut. Excavated over 100 years later, Scotch whisky master blender Richard "The Nose" Paterson went about sampling it (both through chemical analyses and good old-fashioned sniffing), "after making damned sure the seals were intact." The result: a new blend Paterson says is identical. For $175 or so, you can taste a recreation of the Mackinlay's Rare Old. Paterson suggests you close your eyes, take a sip and imagine brutally cold winds and penguins.
"The allure of an intact antique liquor sample lies in the fact it can provide a clear snapshot into an earlier time," says Ted Breaux, whose research into vintage, pre-ban absinthes from the early 20th century helped create the modern brand Lucid, and make the whole absinthe category legal again. "Certain spirits, like absinthe and Chartreuse, continue to age in the bottle. What we're tasting today is a little different than what it was a century ago." Besides Lucid, Breaux has created several absinthes through his company, Jade Liqueurs, including the elegant Nouvelle Orleans. More recently, he has set about duplicating some of the dozen originals in his collection, and has produced three reverse-engineered recreations, including a reproduction of the 1890s original Edouard Pernod, a 1901 Absinthe Superieure and a C.F. Berger original Swiss absinthe recipe.
Bars are also getting in on the vintage spirits act, and not only with whisky and cognac. Pouring Ribbons, a new bar in New York's East Village, boasts an entire page of vintage Chartreuse bottles (both yellow and green) dating back to the 1950s. A single ounce of the strong, funky liqueur can set you back as much as $125. Salvatore Calabrese, a noted London bartender and co-owner of the bar at the Playboy Club London, has made a specialty of crafting cocktails from old booze. He made the news at the beginning of 2012, when a patron accidentally broke a 224-year-old bottle of cognac worth about $77,000.
"The 1960s were a great time for drinking, before the privations of the '70's and '80s," Tanqueray global brand ambassador Angus Winchester told the small, thirsty crowd. While Sinatra loved his Gordon's Gin and various blended Scotch whiskies, he was also known to opt for Tanqueray on occasion. In fact, Old Blue Eyes had thrown back a few drinks at the very bar where we were getting sloshed.
Winchester brought out a number of precision instruments from the '60s, including a "martini scale," used for crafting the perfect drink (in this case, the American Standard Dry Martini with a 4:1 ratio of gin to vermouth). He then hoisted the old-timey Tanq and started pouring. "Making a martini is not just a ritual, but a way of life."
The gin -- which dates to somewhere between 1966 and 1970, based on the labeling -- was provided by a collector. It had mellowed and softened with age. Winchester and his team also uncovered a '60s-era bottle of Noilly Prat dry vermouth to go with, but it hadn't withstood the test of time, being now hollow, oily and slightly vinegared. "We would love to think everything gets better in the bottle," says Winchester. "But that's not the case. In the gin, the coriander and some of the other botanicals have mellowed. But the juniper is still bright, front and center."
Quaffing antique booze stashes has become a "thing" of late. In 2010, divers from Sweden and Finland found intact Champagne bottles in a 230-year-old shipwreck below the surface of the Baltic Sea. Naturally, they popped a bottle (valued at around $80,000) and found it to be "a very sweet Champagne" with notes of tobacco and oak. South Pole explorer Ernest Shackleton left behind, it turned out, three crates of Mackinlay's Rare Old Highland Malt whisky, under the floorboards of his team's Antarctic base camp hut. Excavated over 100 years later, Scotch whisky master blender Richard "The Nose" Paterson went about sampling it (both through chemical analyses and good old-fashioned sniffing), "after making damned sure the seals were intact." The result: a new blend Paterson says is identical. For $175 or so, you can taste a recreation of the Mackinlay's Rare Old. Paterson suggests you close your eyes, take a sip and imagine brutally cold winds and penguins.
"The allure of an intact antique liquor sample lies in the fact it can provide a clear snapshot into an earlier time," says Ted Breaux, whose research into vintage, pre-ban absinthes from the early 20th century helped create the modern brand Lucid, and make the whole absinthe category legal again. "Certain spirits, like absinthe and Chartreuse, continue to age in the bottle. What we're tasting today is a little different than what it was a century ago." Besides Lucid, Breaux has created several absinthes through his company, Jade Liqueurs, including the elegant Nouvelle Orleans. More recently, he has set about duplicating some of the dozen originals in his collection, and has produced three reverse-engineered recreations, including a reproduction of the 1890s original Edouard Pernod, a 1901 Absinthe Superieure and a C.F. Berger original Swiss absinthe recipe.
Bars are also getting in on the vintage spirits act, and not only with whisky and cognac. Pouring Ribbons, a new bar in New York's East Village, boasts an entire page of vintage Chartreuse bottles (both yellow and green) dating back to the 1950s. A single ounce of the strong, funky liqueur can set you back as much as $125. Salvatore Calabrese, a noted London bartender and co-owner of the bar at the Playboy Club London, has made a specialty of crafting cocktails from old booze. He made the news at the beginning of 2012, when a patron accidentally broke a 224-year-old bottle of cognac worth about $77,000.
"I've had the pleasure of working with Salvatore," says Winchester. "He's a liquid historian. Through him I've tried spirits from the early 1800s and pre-Prohibition Johnnie Walker. They all oxidize at least a little, altering the flavors."
Whether discovering some exotic Czech liqueur at the back of your dad's cabinet, or bidding on a 1935 Armagnac at a posh auction, there are a few things to remember before tipping back that mystical liquid, Alice-in-Wonderland-style:
* Make sure the lid is sealed tight. As in, never has been opened. At best the alcohol will have evaporated and any sugars crystallized. At worst, you're gambling with possible bacterial contamination and molds.
* Brown spirits are designed to grow old. They won't age much more in the bottle, but they should last a good long time if properly stored. (Note: some non-chill filtered whiskies will cloud with age. This is actually fine.)
*White spirits (gin, vodka, tequila) should last, if sealed and well stored. Any top notes (agave, gin botanicals) may round and soften. A bad old gin, according to Winchester, may be cloudy and woody, or smell like iodine and turpentine.
*Some brands have changed their formulas over the years (Galliano, an Italian-style liqueur, re-introduced its original, stronger 1896 recipe to the U.S. in 2010, after having dumbed it down for an American market in the 1990s). Sometimes what you're tasting in an old bottle is a moment in booze history.
* Wines and fortified wines (like port and sherry) are also often designed to grow old, but they continue to age in the bottle and generally have a drinking cutoff of 10 to 50 years. Wines that taste like vinegar? Not good. Wines that morph into an amber brown, have tons of sediment and taste more like brandy than Cabernet Sauvignon? Often good.
* Herbaceous liqueurs, like absinthe or Jaegermeister, include infusions from dozens of roots, seeds, flowers and stems, some of which may or may not endure the ages. Be absolutely certain that these have stayed sealed before you drink.
* As a rule, avoid cream liqueurs (like Irish cream) that can curdle or spoil after only a couple of years.
*It's worth investing in period glassware and equipment, making a party of it the way Tanqueray did. Choose a cocktail that highlights when the aged booze was at its peak (say, 1950s for gin, 1880s for rye or cognac, 1970s for vodka and tequila).
*At the high end, not all antique wines and spirits are expected to last. Collectors of fine wines and antique bottles understand that a 1770s genever or an 1865 Chateau Margaux may be little more than a "billionaire's vinegar."
BY ROBERT HAYNES-PETERSON
