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I left a very small amount, maybe a quarter inch or less, of Ridgemont Reserve in a glass overnight and the next morning it was milky/muddy looking and when I tasted a little it was watery and bitter.

Why did this happen? Is this normal? Is this oxidation/evaporation? Does it indicate quality or the distilling process that was used?

I would suspect that the evaporation of the alcohol leaves the barrel residue behind....... you are tasting more of the barrel. Now, does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost over night. If your mother says don't chew it, do you chew it in spite?

billdozer1986 wrote:I left a very small amount, maybe a quarter inch or less, of Ridgemont Reserve in a glass overnight and the next morning it was milky/muddy looking and when I tasted a little it was watery and bitter.

Why did this happen? Is this normal? Is this oxidation/evaporation? Does it indicate quality or the distilling process that was used?

When too much alcohol evaporates from whiskey it goes bad and becomes a bitter brown cloudy sludge. If you drink too much it will probably make you sick and not drunk.
That's how you know if an old unopened bottle is no longer drinkable, if the fill level is low and the whiskey is cloudy.

I learned the same lesson the hard way. Now I make a point of finishing it off before retiring.

Squire wrote:I learned the same lesson the hard way. Now I make a point of finishing it off before retiring.

The pour or the bottle?

Waste not want not.

Ethanol, aka alcohol, is a primary alcohol (a two carbon molecule with a hydroxyl group) and through the process of oxidation causes the bourbon to extract additional water molecules from the air to make either caboxylic acid or an aldehyde. The higher the alcohol content the slower this process is. This explains the turbidity (cloudiness) of the liquor and the change in its flavor.