The whisky samples are now scheduled to depart the Earth on August 16, when the Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle No. 5 lifts off from JAXA’s Tanegashima Space Center. For the sake of getting a true barometer on what zero-gravity does to its products, Suntory intends to send samples of a recently distilled whiskey as well as a 21-year-old single malt. Japanese whisky will be sent into space next month to test how time in a zero-gravity environment affects its flavour, one of the country’s biggest drinks makers said Friday.
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Alas, it’s for science only, at least for now: Suntory has no immediate plans to start selling spaced-aged whisky. These experiments, however, might lend some insight into what exactly happens and result in better whiskey in the future.
That’s right. Suntory is conducting perhaps the greatest experiment in alcohol ever to determine the “development of mellowness in alcoholic beverage through the use of a microgravity environment”, as it stated in this press release.
Suntory, with its latest R&D venture, aims to shed light on the mechanism underlying the mellowing process, which has been investigated previously but to no avail. The experiment will be carried out by Suntory in cooperation with the Institute of Fluid Science, Tohoku University.
If the thought of space whiskey is making your mouth water as much as it is ours, we have to hit you with some bad news. Once experimentation on the whiskey concludes, the groups hope to find a scientific explanation as to what exactly makes alcohol become more mellow while it ages.
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Suntory announced the plans on Thursday. Upon their return they will be studied in labs, where whisky blenders will taste them and compare them to whiskies that have been aged on Earth.
