why does scotch get better with age?

Question

what liquors get better with age , and why?

Answer 1

Liquors are made by distillation! Wines and beers are fermented. The liquor that ages in typically charred oak barrels continues to mellow with age. Single barrel or single malt beverages, once removed from the barrel and blended with distilled water to bring it to proper and legal levels of alcohol are not, going to get any better or any worse in the bottle. The same is true for their blended counterparts

Answer 2

Usually But only in the cask! It doesn't age in the bottle. Some wines get better with age though

Answer 3

Good evening.

Citation from Wikipedia regarding scotch whisky:

Maturation

Once distilled the "new make spirit" is placed into oak casks for the maturation process. Historically, casks previously used for sherry were used (as barrels are expensive, and there was a ready market for used sherry butts). Nowadays the casks used are typically sherry or bourbon casks. Sometimes other varieties such as port, Cognac, Madeira, calvados, beer, and Bordeaux wine are used. Bourbon production is a nearly inexhaustible generator of used barrels, due to a regulation requiring the use of new, oak barrels.[5]

The aging process results in evaporation, so each year in the cask causes a loss of volume as well as a reduction in alcohol. The 0.5–2.0% lost each year is known as the angel's share. Many whiskies along the west coast and on the Hebrides are stored in open storehouses on the coast, allowing the salty sea air to pass on its flavour to the spirit. It is a little-known fact, however, that most so-called "coastal" whiskies are matured in large central warehouses in the Scottish interior far from any influence of the sea.[citation needed] The distillate must age for at least three years in Scotland to be called Scotch whisky, although most single malts are offered at a minimum of eight years of age. Some believe that older whiskies are inherently better, but others find that the age for optimum flavour development changes drastically from distillery to distillery, or even from cask to cask. Older whiskies are inherently scarcer, however, so they usually command significantly higher prices.

Colour can give a clue to the type of cask (sherry or bourbon) used to age the whisky, although the addition of legal "spirit caramel" is sometimes used to darken an otherwise lightly coloured whisky. Sherried whisky is usually darker or more amber in colour, while whisky aged in ex-bourbon casks is usually a golden-yellow/honey colour.

The late 1990s saw a trend towards "wood finishes" in which fully matured whisky is moved from one barrel into another one that had previously aged a different type of alcohol (e.g., port, Madeira, rum, wine, etc) to add the "finish".

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society bottling number 1.81, for instance, is known by some as "the green Glenfarclas". It was finished in a rum cask after 27 years in an oak (ex-bourbon) barrel and is the colour of extra-virgin olive oil. This is in homage to the legendary "Green Springbank", also aged in rum casks. Another notable example is the "Black Bowmore", released in batches in 1993, 94 and 95 after 29, 30, 31 years in ex-Oloroso sherry casks. The name betrays the density of colour and complexity of flavour naturally imparted into what was originally water-clear spirit in 1964.

Regards

Answer 4

liquors are made by fermentation. Mass produced liquors are aged just enough. But the older the alcohol, the more it ferments. The more fermentation, the better the alcohol

Answer 5

time separates selling it as whiskey, Bourbon or scotch. A good year for a brand of wine can gain value with the years good reputation and that's the name of the game.

Answer 6

Because you've been resisting so long that after all that anticipation it just tastes SOOOOOO ******* good!