Whisky is usually aged in barrels made out of oak. The belief is that the qualities of the wood will help give the whisky its distinct taste, although the length of aging will really depend on that particular line and the company, with cheaper brands and companies going for an artificial form of aging.
Now if you’re a whisky connoisseur, chances are you might have heard of the Japanese company Suntory. The company is known for their premium alcohol and in an interesting experiment on aging, it looks like the company is planning on sending up some of the whiskies into space and see how a zero-gravity environment will affect the taste of their products.
The idea is that whisky aged in environments with little temperature change, convection of fluids and shaking tends to end up being more “mellow”, so it will be interesting to see if sending it into space will change that. There will be six samples that the company will be sending into space, one of which is the Yamazaki Single Malt Sherry Cask 2013 which won the best whisky in the world in 2014.
That being said it is a pretty expensive experiment. Apparently sending a pound of cargo to the International Space Station will set them back a cool $10,000. The first batch is expected to be aged in space for a year, while the second batch will be returned after 2 years, with master blenders and lab testing done on it to determine if it was worth the effort.
Filed in . Read more about Food, Social Hit and Space.