Old alcoholic drinks

[Dave2002]

Our understairs cupboard doesn't get opened too often. There are quite a few bottles and cans of drinks which haven't seen the light of day for some while.

Should I bin the lot, or try some out?

Some beer and wine - mostly white - can probably go into casseroles and other recipes. So far we have used up some old wine and beer that way, and there are some spirits bottles which I assume are still perfectly drinkable - I'm just "testing" a bottle of Calvados. Seems drinkable enough, and might go well with pancakes in a month or two.

Regarding the beer, I think that bottles may be less of a problem than cans, but it may be simpler to just chuck everything - probably only about £50 worth anyway - than risk becoming ill.

I have tried some beer which was a few years old out of bottles - seemed to have more of a head than a newish bottle, though didn't cause insurmountable problems - but some that we have is more than just a few years old.

I believe that using these in recipes is not going to cause too many problems - we've already tried that, but it'll take quite a while to clear out that way.

OTOH I don't really want to end up with a major medical problem ... or anyone else who visits too, for that matter.

[Don Petter]

Our guide, under these circumstances, is just reject anything with price labels not in decimal currency. The rest are probably worth a try.

[Nick Armstrong]

One thing's for sure: the Calvados will be fine

A relative of mine discovered a couple of years ago that her recently-deceased husband had been hording unopened Duty Free litres of this that and the other in their attic...

It was Open House soon there after - we were bidden to take away as much as we could carry (*hires transit van*)

I'm still meandering through an enormous 20 yo bottle of Chartreuse Verte; various whiskies and brandies have already disappeared. All perfectly fine.

[Dave2002]

One thing's for sure: the Calvados will be fine

Quite! It might not last till pancake day.

[Serial_Apologist]

Quite! It might not last till pancake day.

From the heading I assumed you to be an old alchoholic who admitted drinking!

[Dave2002]

From the heading I assumed you to be an old alchoholic who admitted drinking!

Well done!

Another boob, like the "grow your own", which I recently realised following some of the postings can be "misinterpreted"!

I'm not an alcoholic - yet!

[Barbirollians]

Spirits should be fine . Beer might have gone rather flat and dull and worth dumping - try a bottle . Opened sherry and port can be drinkable but not very nice as they will have oxidised .

Madeira will be fine it is close to immortal !

[mangerton]

Spirits should be fine . Beer might have gone rather flat and dull and worth dumping - try a bottle . Opened sherry and port can be drinkable but not very nice as they will have oxidised .

Madeira will be fine it is close to immortal !

Have some Madeira, m'dear!

Even if not very good to drink, it should be fine for cooking with.

[ardcarp]

Anyone heard of Lambig? It is a fiery spirit distilled from apples illegally by Breton farmers. A huge bottle was given to me (by a Breton farmer) and it is so potent that we only take a small tipple when everything else has run out and we are desperate. The bottle must have lurked in our boosery for 20 years or more and it doesn't seem any worse now than when we first tried it.

('Lambig', a Breton word, seems to derive from 'Alembic' the Arab word for a still.)

[Nick Armstrong]

Anyone heard of Lambig? It is a fiery spirit distilled from apples illegally by Breton farmers. A huge bottle was given to me (by a Breton farmer) and it is so potent that we only take a small tipple when everything else has run out and we are desperate. The bottle must have lurked in our boosery for 20 years or more and it doesn't seem any worse now than when we first tried it.

('Lambig', a Breton word, seems to derive from 'Alembic' the Arab word for a still.)

Yes! A branch of my French family have run a farm in Normandy (Manche) for generations - and made their own cider from orchards around the farm, with a licence to distil a set amount into Eau de Vie - sort of fiery Calvados. Lambig was / is the equivalent over the border in Brittany.

It wasn't necessarily illegal - my lot and other cider makers in Normandy were allowed to use travelling stills ('alembics') to make a limited amount of the stuff (though that stopped 10 or more years ago). From a site I just found, the same was the case in Brittany:

"In Brittany individual producers of cider are permitted to make Lambig although they are limited to 20 Litres per establishment per year, or enough to keep the cider maker through the cold winter months.
Traditionally Lambig was made on the farm and travelling stills would visit each farm and convert their cider into Lambig, for personal consumption. However, today a number of travelling distilleries are licensed by the state and travel the length and breadth of Brittany converting cider from many producers into Lambig."

Like you I was given a bottle of the stuff years ago and still have the bottom of the bottle... It's incredibly strong - indeed, you can't swallow it, as it evaporates on the tongue so you just experience the spirit in your palate, nose, head....

[BBMmk2]

I know that these days, as far as real ale is concerned, there is a use by date, so I had to bin a few bottles because of that. Unless it's the brewers safety net coming into force here?

Cali, how's the bottles now? :)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Our guide, under these circumstances, is just reject anything with price labels not in decimal currency. The rest are probably worth a try.

Surely that means you can't drink anything in that pub in Bethesda?

Though things may have changed.

[Flay]

I would be wary of cans and bottles of beer/lager that are well past their dates. I do not think that modern containers are as trustworthy as in olden times, probably due to thinner linings. Not long ago I found an old bottle of lager that had developed a sediment and the first sip tasted bad.

I also recently found an out of date can of tomato purée. When opened the kitchen was treated to a gungy crimson fountain!

[gurnemanz]

At my request our daughter made Rum Baba as an alternative to Christmas pud this year. She asked if I had rum in the house and I went off to my cache of old alcohol stored in the garage. Covered in dust and cobwebs I found a bottle of the formidably strong Austrian Stroh Rum. They use it for their Feuerzangenbowle drink made by setting rum-soaked sugar on fire. Available from the jungle people for £27 for half a litre. Mine is a full litre, bought at least 20 years ago and still ¾ full. It is in good nick (one sip is enough to blow you head off). Our Rum Baba was exquisite.

[amateur51]

Yes! A branch of my French family have run a farm in Normandy (Manche) for generations - and made their own cider from orchards around the farm, with a licence to distil a set amount into Eau de Vie - sort of fiery Calvados. Lambig was / is the equivalent over the border in Brittany.

It wasn't necessarily illegal - my lot and other cider makers in Normandy were allowed to use travelling stills ('alembics') to make a limited amount of the stuff (though that stopped 10 or more years ago). From a site I just found, the same was the case in Brittany:

"In Brittany individual producers of cider are permitted to make Lambig although they are limited to 20 Litres per establishment per year, or enough to keep the cider maker through the cold winter months.
Traditionally Lambig was made on the farm and travelling stills would visit each farm and convert their cider into Lambig, for personal consumption. However, today a number of travelling distilleries are licensed by the state and travel the length and breadth of Brittany converting cider from many producers into Lambig."

Like you I was given a bottle of the stuff years ago and still have the bottom of the bottle... It's incredibly strong - indeed, you can't swallow it, as it evaporates on the tongue so you just experience the spirit in your palate, nose, head....

As a student I attended many surgeries run by the late but otherwise indefatigatble Prof Rod Cawson in which he would regale us with hair-raising tales of the butterfly-shaped oral cancer of the floor of the mouth that he was convinced was caused by the frequent ingestion of locally-brewed calvados together with the habit of smoking cigareets backwards, that is you stick the lit end in your mouth! A French country variant of the mid-morning Nescafé and ginger biscuits more commonly found this side of La Manche, he say with a giggle