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 on Friday.
Advertisement
Suntory Holdings will send a total of six samples of its whiskies and other alcoholic beverages to the ISS, where they will be kept for at least a year to study the effect zero gravity has on the ageing process.
In a surprisingly down-to-earth press release, the company focused on its scientific efforts, calling this endeavor an “experiment on the development of mellowness in alcoholic beverage through the use of a microgravity environment”.
Japanese whiskey distillery Suntory is planning on sending ten samples of their wares into space to track the effects of aging in a zero-gravity setting.
Suntory is Japan’s oldest whisky distillery, and is responsible for producing the Yamazaki Single Malt Cherry Cask 2013, which last year was named the best whisky in the world (much to the dismay of Scotland).
According to the Wall Street Journal, the whiskies will be carried into space and back in glass flasks.
The reason behind carrying out the mad experiment is the company’s hypothesis that “the formation of high-dimensional molecular structure consisting of water, ethanol, and other ingredients in alcoholic beverages contributes to the development of mellowness”. The hope is that by taking the whiskies into a microgravity environment, the researchers will be able to verify the effect a convection-free state has on the mellowing of the liquids.
The whisky will be stored at the ISS in two groups, with the first returning in a year and the second in at least two years.
Advertisement
The samples will be carried to the space station on August 16 on Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s transfer vehicle Kounotori.
