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(Journalist)
– Most people want to go back in time. Among whiskey makers, a quest has evolved to speed it up. Last fall, Silicon Valley start-up Bespoken Spirits made headlines by raising $ 2.6 million in seed funding to introduce a rapid aging process that would avoid having to mature whiskey in barrels, which usually takes at least three years. It’s a development that Bespoken says could bring in $ 20 billion a year for the whiskey industry, per Phys.org. “This is an accelerated maturation 2.0,” said co-founder Stuart Aaron at the time. Now the New York Times takes a closer look at Bespoken and others like this, the history of whiskey aging and the technology they are now using to carry out a process virtually overnight. Typically, whiskey stays in oak barrels for a few years to decades, and as the seasons change and temperatures rise and fall, the whiskey is pushed in and out of the wood of the barrel, which increases the flavor and color of the liquid. .
Whiskey makers are now bypassing this longer process. Bespoken, for example, throws tiny wood chips called “microwaves,” made of various woods (that is, not just oak) into a steel tank, along with the unaged whiskey. Workers then increase and decrease the heat and pressure inside the tank, achieving the same “aging” effect in a fraction of the time. Other manufacturers project light into the wood to affect its molecular structure, or “bone” the process using natural sources like yeast and plants. One company, Endless West, says it can make a copy of the 30-year-old Balvenie single malt scotch, which sells for around $ 1,300, and sell it for around $ 40. Connoisseurs say that whiskeys aged quickly don’t quite measure up to those traditionally aged, but that might not matter. “A whiskey like Bespoken’s doesn’t need to taste the best bourbon to be successful”, Times Remarks. “It just has to be better than the worst, competitively priced.” (Read more stories about whiskey.)
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