Whether I’m checking out a bottle’s grade at Distiller while shopping or sitting on my couch perusing r/bourbon reviews, I constantly see some version of the phrase “but it was a neck pour.” This qualifier tends to accompany descriptions of pricier bottles that don’t exactly impress their new owners.
That phrase found me at home, too. A few weeks ago, I was sitting with a friend to enjoy the spoils of her 40th birthday. She opened a highly acclaimed solera whiskey, buttery smooth but surprisingly simple. “Well, don’t pour it through the neck,” she said, swirling the glass and setting it down to rest. We returned an hour later and enjoyed it more, but after trying a few bottles in between, it’s hard to say whether the whiskey or our eagerness to take another sip had changed more.
I began to wonder if I was needlessly suffering through first pours on fresh bottles—what a waste. So last week, I reached out to a few whiskey experts who work in bars and labs to determine if neck pouring was a real phenomenon.
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What is a Neck Cast?
“'Neck pour' is one of the biggest myths in whiskey,” said Wayne Cafariella, creator of @drinkwithwayne and host of a Fresh Pop Friday! series reviewing new bottles. If neck pour was a problem, he would have tasted it.”[The myth] “Before opening a new bottle for the first time, turn it upside down and wet the cork so it can easily pop.”
“I would write with chalk [the neck pour idea] “It comes off as a more emotional and superstitious observation,” said Jim Meehan, famous bartender and Meehan's Bartender's HandbookHe told me. He was also one of the first to say that whiskey sits in an environment ripe for oxidation, namely in a wooden barrel, for years. When we take a bottle off the shelf and open it, there is very little potential for changes from the interaction between the spirit and oxygen.
Dr. Thomas Collins, a professor of wine and spirits chemistry at Washington State University, said that necking exploits a real phenomenon. “Opening a bottle brings in oxygen, but drinking it plain, with water or ice, you taste a bigger difference than leaving a bottle open for a month.”
A neck pour also assumes that master distillers, who spend decades fine-tuning the liquids they send out into the world, will ship out bottles that are flawed upon first sip. “Distillers are experts, and if they think you're having a mediocre experience, they won't put it in a bottle,” explained Jonathan Adler, beverage director of Shinji's, home to NYC's largest collection of Japanese whiskey.
Instead of satisfying my curiosity, Adler's words led me down this rabbit hole, and now I'm wondering what distillers think about the neck casting claims.
“There is no technical, chemical or other relevant answer that I have heard that explains throat casting,” said Pat Heist, PhD, co-founder and chief scientific officer of Wilderness Trail Distillery. “As a chemist, whiskey enthusiast and expert, my thoughts are as follows: [the first pour] “It has more to do with mood, preconceived expectations, physiological state, and what the taster has eaten recently.”
Jack Rose Dining Room/Emilio Pabon
I was even able to pinpoint the common cause of neck-casting claims: newcomers to the whiskey game, said Bill Thomas, owner of the venerable D.C. whiskey temple Jack Rose Dining Saloon. “It's fun to determine that whiskey gets better when it breathes, but that's an oversimplification.”
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How Long Should You Let Your Whiskey Age?
While most people I spoke to wouldn’t wait more than a few minutes to enjoy their first (or fourth) sip from a bottle, Thomas felt more strongly about the potential for oxygen time to enhance the best whiskeys. “With certain sips, we tell people to order a second sip to start while the other sip opens. And we named it a Willett [single barrel selection] “Time Out because we wanted it to sit for at least 20 minutes. When we do a cask strength tasting, we pour it an hour before to allow the whisky to open up.”
Although neck pouring is more superstition than science, Thomas thinks it’s generally good for the whiskey world because it instills in people the idea that the whiskey will change in a glass. “It gets people into tasting more as an intellectual pursuit.”
If someone wants to get the most out of a bottle, Thomas recommended filling their glass and letting it sit for 20 to 30 minutes. “There's nothing wrong with having your first drink while you're waiting for the one you really want,” he added.