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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This isn’t the first time a barrel of booze has been sent into the ether: Scottish distillery Ardbeg teamed up with NanoRacks, a Texan space research firm, to send up 20 vials of whiskey microbes – each with slivers of charred oak which with they were distilled – to the worldwide Space Station in 2011.
The Suntory whisky distillery, founded in 1923, is responsible for producing the Yamazaki Single Malt Cherry Cask 2013 which was ranked the best in the world last year by the highly-regarded Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible 2015.
According to previous studies on aging or maturing processes, whisky which is aged in a stable temperature environment, that suffers little change usually enchants aficionados with a full, mellow taste. It is planning to carry out an interesting experiment on ageing. 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. 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. Suntory has made it clear that it will not provide these specimens to public.
The company plans to include the samples on the Kounotori transfer vehicle launch on August 16.
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The great space whisky experiment will happen on the global Space Station’s Japanese Experiment Module (nicknamed “Kibo”), with the help of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). If the research is right, it is expected that these spirits which are exported in outer space shall taste better than those aged on Earth.
