How long will Bourbon keep in a bottle? If a bottle has a cork, should it be kept on its side like wine? What is the best way to store my Bourbon?
R. K., Michigan

Whether it's got a screw cap or a cork, if the bottle is sealed tightly, your Bourbon should keep for a long time. You just don't want to allow it to evaporate. And you don't have lay the bottle down to keep the cork moist as you might do if you were storing a bottle of rare wine for several years. Your whiskey won't age in the bottle either, like some wines do, so you don't have to worry about that. However, I would recommend storing your Bourbon away from bright light and temperature extremes. Just seems like the thing to do.

Scotch whisky seems to attain so much unique flavor from the combination of local peat and oak barrels. Why don't Bourbon distillers use some local type of ingredient to impart a unique flavor to their individual Bourbons? (Besides water and grain.)
K. S. (STATE?)

The law states that Bourbon must not have colorings or flavorings or funny stuff added to make it taste unique. Just grains and water. But each distillery has its own special strain of yeast and recipes and ages its products differently, so tastes do vary from brand to brand. Plus, all the master distillers I know manage to come up with their own unique ways of doing things-even designing their stills. Limestone water, available so abundantly in and around Bourbon country in Kentucky, also adds its own very special qualities.

How do you know when to select the year that the aging of Bourbon is complete? The years of aging seem to vary on the brands. Regards. Sure do appreciate your Bourbon on our cold winter nights.
E. G., Mendota Heights, MN

You're right, the number of years in the barrel varies greatly from brand to brand depending on the flavor profile the distiller desires. And even though we determined how old we wanted each brand to be-way back when the recipe for it was developed-we also use other measurements that help us determine when a barrel is ready to be bottled. After all, aging is a fickle process, and many things we have no control over can affect the magic that happens inside a barrel. The temperatures inside the rick house and the weather itself are a couple big ones. So we "thief out" a sample of the Bourbon and taste it to make sure it has reached its ideal maturity. Our taste is really what tells us to bottle our Bourbon or let it sleep a little more.

Have your own questions?
If you have a question about Bourbon, ask Master Distiller Parker Beam. Next to making great Bourbon, there's nothing he likes to do more than tell people about great Bourbon.