quote:

Originally posted by porkbeaks

If 45 year old Seagram’s 7 tastes smoother, it’s because they made smoother Seagram’s 7 45 years ago. Time in a glass bottle doesn’t improve spirits that I’m aware of. Now if it had spent those years in a wood cask………………….-pb

yup.

"… Whisky, however, must be aged in wood. Once whisky is sealed in glass, aging stops … but unless you descend from a line of providential ancestors, each generation putting down several barrels per year as a legacy to the future, aged home-made whisky is rather rare and probably the result of happy accident rather than by design … fortunately there is a shortcut … whisky can be given the similitude of aging by easy artificial means, marrying it with charred oak chips …"

(ref: Adams, John Festus. "An Essay on Brewing, Vintage and Distillation Together with Selected Remedies for Hangover Melancholia". 1st ed. Vol.1. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1966. 65-66.)