Dark Lord Variants - how long to age?

They are all crazy thick and boozy, most people compare it to soy sauce fresh. I recently opened a 2010 and it was fantastic. Honestly, enjoy breaking them open fresh, better than waiting a half decade.

 

We're doing a similar thing where our group that went to DLD together will get together to share the variants fall 2016.

 

Best opened fresh with your friend Charlie who has no Varients of his own.

 

I think the soy sauce comment applies more so to fresh regular Dark Lord. I didn't find the regular '14 or '16 boozy though ('15, yes when I opened it fresh).

With regards to variants, I had Cognac Coffee DL '15 after 3 months and it was shockingly smooth. I've also had VBDL '15 with a year on it and that was even smoother and richer mouth feel than the Cognac Coffee DL. I certainly wouldn't call either of the variants I had boozy.

My advice, there's really no concern if you want to open them on the 'fresher' side as I don't think they'll be boozy. But being that they are high ABV, big stouts I wouldn't worry about them sitting around for a couple of years if cellared properly either.

 

I also had the 15 vbdl about a year after I bought it and thought it was as good as it could ever be.

 

Never had a variant, but with regular, to me, there is little to know difference between fresh and after a year in the bottle.

 

They'll do fine with some age. They'll probably smooth out a bit, and with the DL variants I've had, I haven't noticed a big fall-off with the adjuncts. Even after a year or two. On the other hand, there's no reason they shouldn't be tasting great right now. BADLs aren't really the same beast as regular DL at all.