Does the alcohol content in rum rise with age?!
Answers: I have this bottle of rum and when I first opened it about two years ago, I could drink quite a bit before feeling tipsy, when I found it about a week ago and drank about 6 ounces I was automatically toasted. My weight is the same, and I really think my tolerance is the same or better than two years ago. This made me wonder if the percentage of alcohol rises as it gets older, maybe through some kind of evaporation process or something.
The rum has not increased in alcohol content. As others have said, that is impossible. However, your (or anyone's) tolerance for alcohol varies widely based on many circumstances--how much you've eaten and when, how much sleep you've gotten, how much stress you're under, how much physical activity you engage in, and (for women) where you are in your menstrual cycle, to mention a few that have the most effect. Oh--and how much and how often you drink alcoholic beverages (i.e., built-up tolerance).
In other words, it's not the rum, it's you.
The alcoholic content in the rum was probably 80 proof (40%).
It had the same content when you drank it two years ago and it had the same when you drank it two years later.
It doesn't go up with time.
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First poster was mostly correct. Alcohol content does not increase with age. Alcohol is created when yeast consumes sugars in a process known as fermentation. Spirits also go through a distillation process, but that's a bit more complicated.
To sum it up, the only alcoholic drinks that can increase in alcohol over time are very few types of beers that are bottle conditioned with an extraordinary amount of yeast and residual sugar. These are few and far between.
The liquid in alcoholic drinks can evaporate over time, usually only in spirits, but this typically occurs over a period of 30+ years.
Cheers!
(only problem w/ first post is that 60 proof would be 30% abv... alcohol content by volume in spirits is represented by the term "proof" which is twice the number of the abv)
no it can't there is no fermentation going on and alcohol will evaporate faster than the water....maybe you had an empty stomach
nope it does not...rum is yum
FYI, Alcohol is ethanol, which is basically a hydrocarbon, C2H5OH. Since it's boiling point is lower than water, the other part of rum, if anything is going to evaporate it would be the ethanol, not the water.
So, a 70 proof (35%) rum left for 2 years would not become any higher, but in fact would become lower. Depending on exactly where and how it was stored, 65 proof is possible without any real extreme conditions. I'm assuming you had the cap on, but not air tight. That small gap is enough for the alcohol to evaporate. Ethanol has a higher vapor pressure than water, so as it becomes airborne would force its way out of the bottle and into the surrounding air.