Intellij can be configured to target older versions of the Java language (so it will basically error if you use newer language constructs than the ones you've set) but I can imagine that it might be very difficult for you to capture quirks of java 1.x if you're using java 1.y. Difficult enough that most developers would just decide they haven't time for the trouble and install an old, unsupported, and insecure version of the jvm on their work machine.

EDIT: To be clear, those quirks would exist on your production deployment running java 1.x which is why they may be important to emulate.