New producers believe they can make a "chemical?" compound to make an equivalent to scotch whiskey without the aging.
It might work - anyone tried it?
Choice quotes below in case of paywall
Endless West, based in San Francisco, is one such. It has done away with barrel-ageing entirely. Using a gas chromatograph, which separates a mixture into its constituents and then spits out an analysis of that mixture’s make up, the firm’s researchers claim to have identified the molecules which give different whiskies their flavours.
Josh Decolongon, Endless West’s chief product officer, says a compound called 4-ethylguaiacol transports him to, “a chilly holiday night spent indoors...burning logs and sweet spices”. Ethyl butanoate, on the other hand, he associates with candied apples, tropical fruit or perhaps grapes. Mr Decolongon and his team use a mixture of techniques, including distillation and solvent partitioning (taking advantage of the different solubilities of most chemicals in water and oily liquids) to extract these and other compounds from things like plants, yeasts and barrel wood. Once they have obtained these flavours, they add them to pure ethanol bought from an outside supplier. The result is Glyph, a spirit that takes around 24 hours to make and sells for about $40 a bottle.
Endless West is the only company so far to eliminate ageing entirely, but at least seven others are speeding the process up. In Los Angeles, for example, a firm called Lost Spirits inserts heated barrel wood into distilled spirit and blasts it in a reactor to quicken the process. That takes six days, and produces a drink called Abomination: Sayers of the Law.
All this will count for little if age-defying whiskies taste bad and people will not buy them. The Scotch Whisky Association, a trade body which represents Scotland’s whisky industry, bristles at the idea that production can be rushed or replicated.
Abomination has received some excellent reviews, and chromatographic analysis of it reveals a similar chemical signature to that of conventionally aged whiskies. Glyph’s reviews are mostly mediocre, although your correspondent found it tastes good when mixed with a slug of ginger ale.
Both firms’ products are proving popular with tech-minded youngsters who enjoy the stories about a break with tradition. Meanwhile another age-defying distillery, Tuthilltown Spirits, in upstate New York, is trying a different approach. It agitates its barrelled whiskies to accelerate maturation. Its workers do this by placing bass shakers around the warehouse and playing loud music through them. They say bass-heavy dubstep works best.
