Q--Fewer people seem to drink hard liquor nowadays, but I do like to keep a well-stocked bar. Just how long can you keep open and unopened bottles of liquor? I have some bottles that are years old. Are they safe to drink? What about beer? I`ve always wanted to put a refrigerated tap in my basement, but I drink so little beer that I`m afraid a keg would go bad before I finished it. A--There are various factors that hasten liquor`s demise, but, generally speaking, that bottle of hooch you bought the day you turned 21 probably will still be perfectly good the day your doctor makes you give up drinking.
Barring contamination, liquor doesn`t go bad in the sense that meat or fish go bad. Liquor instead experiences a gradual decrease in quality; for example, an ages-old bottle of whiskey might develop, over time, a taste so unpleasant that you can`t drink it. ``But it won`t turn noxious,`` says John Brady, vice president for public relations for Seagram Distillers Co. ``It`ll just lose its flavor. It won`t harm you, but it won`t improve your disposition, either.``
Brady says that a sealed bottle, properly stored, should last indefinitely, with little, if any, deterioration in taste. Even an opened bottle will last a long time, provided it`s tightly capped and properly stored. ``Certainly it`ll keep for several years,`` Brady says.
Liquor`s big enemy, apart from the temperance people, is oxygen. That`s what steals the taste away. ``For that reason, the amount of liquor left in the bottle makes a difference,`` Brady says. ``If you have just an inch or so of whiskey left in a 1.75-liter bottle, drink it up. The air in the bottle will cause it to lose a lot of flavor.``
It`s also possible, Brady says, for bottles of liquor to acquire unpleasant tastes. ``We`ve had cases where customers complained that sealed bottles had gone bad,`` he says, ``and we found that the customer had stored the bottle in a cedar closet for four years. You can`t do that, even if the cap is on tight; the fumes will get into that liquor and ruin it. Camphor will do the same thing, so you should keep liquor well away from mothballs.``
But while a well stored bottle isn`t going to suffer much over time, neither will it improve. A persistent myth among drinkers, Brady says, is that a bottle of whiskey will ``age,`` that is, become smoother and more mellow, if kept unopened for a few years. ``That`s certainly true of whiskey in a barrel,`` he says, ``which continues to change while in contact with the wood and air. But once it goes into a glass bottle, that`s it.``
In other words, a 12-year-old scotch stored for eight years is not now, nor will it ever be, a 20-year-old scotch. At best, that bottle may, if you`ve handled it right, be no worse today than on the day you brought it home. It certainly isn`t any better.
Wines are similar, Brady says. Wines are less stable than whiskeys, and do change characteristics over time. Many fine wines are supposed to age, in fact, and don`t reach their peak for several years after bottling. But most simple, inexpensive wines are ready to drink the day you bring them home. They won`t go bad after a few years of proper storage, but Brady says it`s unlikely they`ll improve.
Again, though, wine won`t go bad to the extent that it becomes dangerous, Brady says. Oxygen eventually will ruin a wine by making it undrinkable.
``Conceivably, in time the whole bottle would turn to vinegar,`` he says.
``But that won`t make it poisonous.``
Beer is only a slightly different proposition. John Amos, spokesman for Miller Brewing Co. in Milwaukee, says that Miller stamps its kegs with a freshness code--60 days from the time it`s brewed. ``If we were to put a keg in a retail outlet, we`d insist the outlet pull the keg within those 60 days,`` he says.
But, at the risk of sounding repetitious, it isn`t a question of safety.
``Our recommendation is 60 days,`` Amos says, ``but that`s just to ensure that the product always tastes as good as it should. It may very well be that, kept refrigerated, the beer would still be fine after 60 days. But nothing happens in the product that makes it dangerous,`` he says. What happens instead to beer left too long on the shelf (sing along if you know the words) is that it starts to taste bad.
So it`s difficult to know whether a bar tap is worthwle for you, because it depends so much on how sensitive you are to aging beer. But here are a few figures that can help. A keg of beer holds 15 gallons; to consume it within the 60-day ``freshness`` period, you`d have to put away a quart of beer a day, or close to half a six-pack, for two months. On the other hand, you could buy a half-keg, or pony, which holds 7.5 gallons. Then you only have to drink a pint a day.
If you fall short of your goal (better that than a flight of stairs) and you can`t stand the taste after 60 days, then you`ll have to throw some of the beer away. Even this might be cost effective. A keg of beer is roughly equivalent to seven cases, which, on sale, will cost close to $60. You can buy a keg for about $30. Even if you throw half the keg away, you break even. And if you have enough friends and/or family to finish each keg, the savings eventually will pay for the cost of the bar and refrigerator.
Readers may submit questions of general interest to As a Matter of Fact, care of Tempo, The Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60611. Unpublished letters cannot be answered individually.