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I make my products at a high %ABV and store them high too. After diluting to drinking strength (40 %ABV) I let them sit for some days, to lose the sharpness and get some balance.
But a question on another forum made me wonder: is there any difference between the final outcome?
Suppose you store your products a year in bottles at 80 %ABV and dilute them two weeks before consuming
would they taste different from
Dilute your products to 40 %ABV and store these bottles for a year?

Mind you: not storing in casks, but storing in closed bottles.

Has anybody any experience with that?

The biggest problem with storing your liquor at high proof is the risk that other people may find and consume it without knowing what it is. Poisoning lies that way.

I like my gin a little more potent @ 50% but that's about the limit.

Aging still continues even in glass. If it were me, I would have the tendency to store (age) in glass at 40% - 50% ABV rather than diluting just before drinking. Just my opinion.

@ExpatLad: I know! So now I use different labels and different, unusual bottles for storing at high %. And at the back a warning label.

@Redwoodhillbilly: Right after diluting the drink tastes sharp and unbalanced, so I would try to wait at least a week after diluting.

Kareltje wrote:I make my products at a high %ABV and store them high too. After diluting to drinking strength (40 %ABV) I let them sit for some days, to lose the sharpness and get some balance.....................?

Mine comes off the pot around 60% abv, gets aged, oaked or not at the same strength and is diluted at drinking stage.

If I'm making a liqueur, the likker goes in at 60% and the liqueur comes out more abv than shop bought, probably around 40% abv.

My relatives are forever picking berries off the hedgerows !!!!!

Anything in bottles is about 46% max in my house..

Stuff aging is normally about 60%

B

Label stuff guys, put the ABV on the label. No it won't make any difference that you will detect, alcohol does not age sealed in a bottle. It will under go some chemical changes that might slightly affect the character over a long period of time but even that is finite. I shared a bottle of whiskey with one of Dads friends that was 30 years old and had spent another 30 odd years bottled it was as nice as any 30 year old whiskey. I had a blended whiskey aged around 60 years and they were not the same in any sense.
Anther example is my old man had a bottle of notoriously rough Gilt edge Australian whiskey he bought probably back in the 1970s, in 40 years it lost none of that throat punch and burn that 40 years in a cask I'm sure would have ameliorated.

Grains and rums in my shed stay at barrel strength on oak until a few weeks before I need them. Even then, I only take enough for my immediate needs, leaving the rest on the wood until it is finally empty.

Then the wood gets recycled into new make.