Alcohol (Spirits)

Distilled spirits at 80 proof and above do not spoil: nothing lives at 40 percent alcohol, and a sealed bottle of vodka, whiskey, rum, gin or brandy is the same in fifty years as it is today. It's on the field guide's Indefinite 15, and the list of what a bottle does in a food store is longer than most things in it: a tincture base, a cleaning solvent, a fire starter, a flavor for sauces and marinades, a pain reliever of last resort, a sedative that cuts both ways, and the most reliable trade good in any crisis in history. The one thing it's not, at 80 proof, is a disinfectant.

Plain 80 proof vodka is the most useful bottle: flavorless, so it works in tinctures, extracts and cleaning as well as the glass. Whiskey, rum and brandy for drinking and trade. A bottle of 151 proof rum or 190 proof grain alcohol (where it is sold) is the medicine-cabinet spirit, strong enough to disinfect and to make a proper tincture. Buy in glass with a screw cap or a good cork, and buy what you would be glad to have or glad to trade. Skip liqueurs, cream liqueurs and anything under 80 proof for storage; they fade and the cream ones spoil.

Upright (a cork or cap that sits in spirit dissolves over the years), sealed, cool and dark; sunlight and heat fade the flavor of whiskey and brandy, though the alcohol does not care. A loose cap is the only enemy; it lets the alcohol evaporate, and a bottle a third full oxidizes faster than a full one. Decant a long-open bottle into a smaller one. It freezes only in a very cold freezer and comes back unharmed.

Spirits do not spoil. A bottle that has lost its cap for years is weaker and flatter and still fine. Liqueurs that have crystallized or gone cloudy are old; cream liqueurs that have curdled or smell sour are done. Spirits that smell of the cork (a damp, musty note) in a corked bottle are a flavor loss, not a hazard.

Tinctures: a jar of dried herb covered in 80 to 100 proof vodka, shaken daily for a month, strained, keeps for years and is the way to store the medicinal herbs; the formulas cover the ones from the book. Cleaning: 80 proof cuts grease and sap and cleans a window, and it is a solvent, not a sanitizer. Disinfecting takes 60 to 70 percent alcohol, which means 120 proof and up; 151 rum and 190 proof grain alcohol qualify, 80 proof vodka does not. Fire: 151 and higher light; 80 proof mostly will not. Cooking: a splash in a pan sauce, a marinade, a fruit preserved in brandy that keeps for years. Pain and sleep: a measured drink dulls pain and helps sleep in a crisis and thins blood, lowers body temperature and clouds judgment, which is why it is the last resort and never for someone injured, cold or in shock. Trade: a sealed bottle of whiskey has been currency in every shortage on record.

Nothing changes. A bottle in the cellar is a bottle in the cellar. Note the warmth it seems to give is heat leaving the body; in a cold house it's the wrong drink.

• Cocktails
• Sauce & marinade flavor
• Tincture base
• Cleaning solvent
• Fire starter

Shelf-life figures are from the Survival Foods field guide; fridge, freezer and pantry times are from the USDA cold and pantry storage charts. Run the look, smell, taste check before eating anything past its date.