Negative Effects Of Heat & Cold On Alcohol

Some really useful information popped up in the Cruzan 2 year old light rum becomes 14 month. The subject seemed worth its own thread so with a little cut & paste...

Registered Astronaut asked:

"...Does anybody know about heat and alcohol and negative side effects? I keep my good liquor in a bar in the living room, but my everyday stuff, which is most of my mixing rums (including that Cruzan 2 year) in a cabinet above the fridge. On really hot days (i have no AC) the fridge works extra hard, giving off a lot of heat which rises and warms the cabinet. Some hot days my rums are like probably near body temperature. I know it ruined my chambord for sure. I know heat ruins beer too, but I can't seem to tell if it's hurting my rums. It makes the ice melt a lot faster, which sucks."

bewarethe151 replied:

"Not a good spot for storage of any bottles which you intend to keep more than, say, a month. The cycle from warm to cool, warm to cool, ... aids the change of a molecule. Certainly, liquors are the most effected with the breakdown of sugar. With spirits, the amount of air in the bottle (how much has been drunk) is a major factor in stability and the ill effects of thermo-cycling. A full bottle is better suited for storage in adverse conditions than one which is half full. A stable cool spot is best for long term storage. One side note, direct sunlight, even in a cool place is bad, too."

martiki replied:

"All true- especially pronounced as mentioned with a hi-sugar product, regardless of proof. Best just to put them into a low dark cabinet away from a heat source. Better still to drink them, thus providing the excuse to get more, which will have less air in the bottle, at least for a while. Then repeat. It's a vicious circle."

And now my long burning question: What about cold?

The freezer is a popular spot for Vodka and I've wondered for some time about keeping gin in the freezer or fridge. The same with rum that I know I'm going to use in a well chiled or heavily iced drink.

I know cold suppresses flavor (which is why purists freak at the idea of Scotch on the Rocks) but is there any long term ill effect from freezer/fridge storage of booze that's going to get used with ice?

What about short term, if I'm going to use all of a bottle of gin/rum one night (or two bottles if someone else is coming over) can it be put in the fridge?

Freezing a wood-aged spirit can lead to some cloudiness in the product, which is why some whiskeys are chill-filtered. Not likely to make any difference in a vodka. Appleton bottles certain products in their range at 43% to avoid this, as they sell a lot to chilly Canada.

Wikipedia:

Chill filtration

Many whiskies are bottled after being "chill-filtered". This is a process in which the whisky is chilled to near 0°C (32°F) and passed through a fine filter. This removes some of the compounds produced during distillation or extracted from the wood of the cask, and prevents the whisky from becoming hazy when chilled, or when water or ice is added.

Chill filtration also removes some of the flavour and body from the whisky, which is why some consider chill-filtered whiskies to be inferior.

From Whisky Magazine Forums:

The stuff you take care of with chill-filtering are higher alcohols, molecular chains that are far longer than the drinkable C2O5OH, ethanol. They come into the whisky during the distillation process because the heat is enough to vaporize them along with the desired ethanol. During the distillation the still man cuts of the foreshots, collects the wanted middle cut, the heart of the run and cuts of the feints, the unsavoury bitter alcohols, too. But distilling is an art, not a science therefore you have an amount of higher alcohols in your middle cut as well. That can not be helped and should not because with these longer molecules along go flavours and aromas. In fact these chains of molecules carry taste, aroma and flavour in themselves.
But: If your whisky gets cold and has a abv beneath 46% abv, these longer molecules fall out of the fluid because below 46% abv they can not be held in solution within the whisky with this relatively low alcohol content. And the clouds are here to stay. At 46% abv and above the whisky when getting cold clouds over nicely but when temperatures go up it goes back to normal because with the help of the warmth the higher alcohol content dissolves the waxy alcohols again.
The industry does not believe that customers want to drink a cloudy whisky and to be honest, it does not look too well even when you know why it turned cloudy. Therefore the bottlers chill the whisky before bottling, the higher alcohols turn waxy and can easily be removed with mechanical filtres.
Along go elements of taste, flavour and aroma, though.

I don't keep my liquor in the freezer, but let's say I wanted to, but didn't want permanent cloudiness.

If I "fortified" my 80° liquor with enough ethanol to bring it just above 86° (43%), would that likely wreck the flavor?
I did the math, and you end up with about 86.5°, if you pour off and replace with Everclear (190°/95% grain alcohol):
750ml - 1½ oz. or 45ml
1 liter - 2 oz. or 60ml
1.75 liter - 3½ oz. or 100ml

Probably not a great idea, but just how bad might this be?

Oh, and thanks for clearing up the mystery of why some liquors are bottled at 86°. I always wondered where they came up with that number. (Why not 85, why not 90, I asked myself.)

[ Edited by: Limbo Lizard 2008-06-12 06:58 ]

Well, re-reading Martiki's last post, I see I goofed on my last post. I really should have been figuring to boost the proof up to 92°(46%), not Appleton's 86°. That's quite a difference from 80°, and the necessary amount of extra alcohol would probably dilute the flavor of your liquor, if nothing else.
But, for the heck of it, here's what you'd replace with Everclear to get to just over 92°:
750ml - 2¾ oz. or 85ml
1 liter - 3¾ oz. or 110ml
1.75 liter - 6½ oz. or 200ml

[ Edited by: Limbo Lizard 2008-06-12 07:54 ]