alcohol - how longs does it keep for?

[mckenzie]

I went to the cabinet where we keep our drink tonight (I nearly typed 'drinks cabinet' but they sounded so Hyacinth Bucket and i thought you'd all laugh at me )

Anyway, the Baileys was best before November 2010 but was unopened so I figured that would be okay for christmas (I had a small glass to be sure of course).

But we have bottles of brandy, whisky, vodka, martini, port, sherry, Pimms that has been there years and years! Surely I should bin it all huh? We're not big drinkers at all but we are having friends over this year so I should really ditch it all and do a re-stock shouldn't I?

They all live for as long as you wish, the erm...alcohol.. preserves it. Ditch the Baileys once open for a couple of weeks as the cream goes off. The Baileys, despite tasting like crap, doesn't have a calendar inside it so isn't aware that it's now December. Best before doesn't mean anything, even pickled onions have this on the jar.

thanks Belle.

If you have 3 year old mulled wine 'ready to heat', chuck it as it is all syrupy.(We did that last night). We are currently having a tiff about whether to chuck the sherry (years old) or not. I say it should go...

The Baileys does go off after a while even if unopened. Whiskey hangs around in casks for decades before bottling. The other spirits should be OK too.

Port and sherry are more like wine and do eventually degrade once opened and exposed to air.