Spirits

Every spirit begins as something fermented: grain mash, molasses, cooked agave, grape wine, fruit. Distillation raises the strength and strips out part of the character, and the rest of the identity comes from what happens after the still. Gin gets its flavour added back through botanicals. Whisky and brandy take theirs from years in oak. Vodka is deliberately stripped further than any of the others. The names on a shelf describe those choices rather than a scale of quality, which is why two bottles from the same category can taste very little alike.

Alcohol by volume is the figure that matters, and most spirits are bottled at 40 percent or close to it. Proof is an older American convention set at double the ABV, so 80 proof and 40 percent describe the same bottle. Cask strength or overproof means the spirit went into the bottle without being diluted down. Those bottles hit harder in a mixed drink, and a recipe written for a standard bottling will need a shorter pour.

A spirit meant for sipping is usually one where the distiller has spent time rather than volume: long ageing, a single batch, a lower yield. Those flavours get buried under citrus and sugar. A spirit built for mixing is bolder and simpler on purpose, because it has to carry through tonic, cola or a shaken drink without disappearing. Neither is better than the other. They are aimed at different glasses, and the label rarely says which, so the useful guide is the strength of whatever you plan to put with it.

Ageing happens in wood and it stops the moment the spirit is bottled, so a twelve year old bottled in 2010 is still a twelve year old today. Only an open bottle changes, slowly losing aroma to the air.

Unopened and stored upright, spirits are stable for years. Once opened, a bottle kept above the halfway mark holds its character for a year or more. Below that the air in the bottle does the damage, and the last third fades fastest, so finish it or decant it into something smaller. Liqueurs and anything containing cream or fruit behave differently and belong in the fridge.

For anything sipped neat, a tulip shape with a narrow rim gathers the aroma and gives you more of it. A wide tumbler lets the alcohol blow off and suits a spirit over ice.