An opened bottle of spirits lasts years. An opened bottle of wine lasts three days. An opened bottle of vermouth lasts about a month, and that one catches almost everybody.
The rule underneath all of it is simple: alcohol preserves, oxygen destroys. The higher the proof, the longer it lasts.
The whole answer in one table
| Bottle | Once opened | Keep it |
|---|---|---|
| Whiskey, gin, vodka, rum, tequila | 1 to 2 years | Upright, cool, out of sunlight |
| Liqueurs and cream liqueurs | 6 months, cream 6 months in the fridge | Fridge once open |
| Vermouth and aperitifs | 1 month | Fridge, always |
| Port and sherry | 2 to 4 weeks | Fridge |
| Red and white wine | 3 to 5 days | Fridge, both, recorked |
| Sparkling wine | 1 to 2 days with a proper stopper | Fridge |
Why vermouth is the one that ruins drinks
Vermouth is wine. People store it next to the gin because that is where it gets used, and a bottle sits in a warm cupboard for eight months slowly turning brown and stale.
Then the Martini or the Manhattan tastes dusty and flat and the whiskey gets blamed for it. It was never the whiskey. Gallo Sweet Vermouth 750Ml costs $7.69. Buy a fresh one, keep it in the fridge, throw it out after a month, and your cocktails improve more than they would from spending twenty dollars more on the spirit.
Spirits do not go off, but they do fade
Nothing will grow in a bottle of gin. What happens instead is slower: as the bottle empties, the air inside it increases, and oxidation dulls the aromatics. A bottle with an inch left in the bottom has been sitting in mostly air for months.
So a sealed bottle of Bombay Sapphire Gin 750Ml is good essentially forever. A bottle with two fingers left is worth using rather than saving for a special occasion that keeps not arriving.
Store them standing up. High-proof spirit sitting against a cork degrades it, and a crumbled cork in a good bottle is a genuinely sad discovery.
Wine, honestly
Three days for most bottles, five if you are lucky and it is a heavy red. Put the cork back in and put it in the fridge - white and red both, because cold slows oxidation regardless of colour. Take the red out twenty minutes before you want it.
The vacuum pumps work a little. The argon sprays work better. Neither turns three days into three weeks, whatever the box says.
Sparkling wine
A proper sparkling stopper gets you a day, maybe two. The teaspoon-in-the-neck trick does nothing at all; it has been tested and it is folklore.
Honestly, the better answer is to open a smaller bottle, or to accept that Lamarca Prosecco D.O.C. 750Ml at $16.47 is cheap enough that finishing it is not a tragedy.
The freezer question
Keeping vodka in the freezer is fine and it is what it is designed for. The cold thickens it slightly and mutes the burn, which is the point when it is being drunk neat and cold.
Do not do it with gin. Gin's whole argument is its aromatics, and freezing shuts them down, so you end up with cold alcohol and none of the botanicals you paid for. Whiskey the same: cold closes it up.
Nothing will freeze solid at these strengths. Anything above about 40% alcohol just gets thick and syrupy, which is why a bottle of vodka out of the freezer pours the way it does.
How to tell a bottle has gone
Wine smells like sherry, vinegar or wet cardboard. Vermouth goes brown and tastes flat and stewed. Cream liqueurs separate or thicken, and you should not test those further.
None of it will hurt you. It will just taste bad, which at a certain point is worse.
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