Lab-Made Whiskey, Lab-Made Wine | Hacker News Reader

Lab-Made Whiskey, Lab-Made Wine

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That's how most whiskey, by quantity, is made already.[1] Frank-Lin Distillers' Products makes most of the low-end booze on the West Coast, and some of the high-end. Ethanol, made in plants in the Midwest, comes in by the tank car load by rail. Water comes from the water main and goes through a de-ionizing plant. Water, ethanol, and flavoring are mixed and bottled.

They produce over a thousand brands, but there are only about a hundred different recipes. Much of the value added is from the bottle and label. The bottle factory is across the street. They make most kinds of booze, including wine. The alcohol is "food grade industrial alcohol."[2]

They used to make Skyy vodka, until Skyy was acquired by Campari. Skyy was just a marketing operation. Frank-Lin made the stuff under contract. You can have your own brand of booze made by them as a service. Selling it is your problem.

Brand differences in this industry are more about marketing than product.

[1] https://www.frank-lin.com/production.html [2] https://www.mgpingredients.com/other-products/food-grade-ind...

Whiskey is not made by mixing flavorings with pure ethanol from a rail car. It's (essentially) distilled beer. Most American whiskey is in fact distilled in Kentucky.

Brand differences in the whiskey market are complicated and incestuous, but they are not generally "more marketing than product".

Is it true that most American whiskey is distilled in Kentucky?

Jim Beam is massive in scope in ways that are fairly incomprehensible. Add mpg and micros & I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not true.

Beam's biggest distillery (Booker Noe) is in Boston, KY.

Ok? Not what I asked. Suntory has lots of distilleries. Honestly don’t know what their production mix is.

Also doesn’t account for the trick question which is jack daniels. With that one is their any chance your statement is true?

PS: this is the worst form of internet board pedantry. Thomas was talking about a mis representation of the whiskey industry & instead of reputing his point, which I agree with, I nerd sniped.

Jack Daniels operates the largest still (by capacity) in the states, but then the next like 15 big stills are all in Kentucky. Suntory has stills all over the place, but if it's not Beam, it's probably not not American Beam-Suntory whiskey.

(Weird fact: MGPI distillate is all over the market, but they're not even close to the "biggest" still).

So this is a legitimate nerd snipe I’m willing to concede. I think it is closer than Thomas is saying here. Between Jack, Beam (and their international owners) & adding MGP & the tiny crafts I’d bet more American whiskey is distilled outside of Kentucky than in.

Here is the bet. Given a methodology chosen by ‘harryh I’m in on $500 to Blackstone Bicycle works against $500 to tptacek’s charity of choice.

If you count all Suntory whiskey as "American whiskey", I am not there for this bet. But otherwise, yeah, I'm in for "the majority of all American whiskey is distilled in Kentucky".

To answer the question I do not consider any jspanese whisky brand american whisky. Suntory, hibiki, Nikka, Yamazaki, etc.

american whiskeys like 4 roses, weird wild turkeys & japan only beams count as Americans.

I defer to harryh’ on the bet if you do.

Agree.

I don't know what y'all are asking me to do here exactly?

It seems like someone needs to do some research to find a list of whiskey distilleries and their annual output?

It turns out that this was fairly hard data to compile. The easiest set of data came from the Brown-Forman annual report. They list their distilleries and their sales volume in clear terms. The rest of the distilleries were not nearly as clear. Further Heaven Hill, a giant, is not public so don't need disclose an annual report.

In any case it became really clear really early that this bet devolved into 'does Jack Daniels outsell the rest of the American Whiskey industry by itself?'

Surprisingly, the answer is 'its actually close'. Here is an article that summarizes similar results to what I found: https://www.thespiritsbusiness.com/2018/06/world-whiskey-bra....

Dickel is the next biggest non-KY distillery that doesn't show up on this list. They are effectively .1 additional 9l cases combined. The crafts are .007.

In any case, I'll concede the bet. Let me know the charity.

Also if its not obvious that seagrams entry is from Indiana. So this top 7 list actually shows outside of KY on top, but the next N major distilleries are all in KY.

If anyone is watching this thread I paid the bet off to the Chicago Legal Clinic

I have no idea, I was just going along with whatever Kasey said.

Vodka is often made by industrial methods because vodka is water and ethanol with as little taste as possible.

Bourbon is still made by fermenting grains, distilling them (often in pot stills), and aging for a few years in new oak barrels. But bourbon is often sold to other labels and blended, which is what Frank-Lin does. A lot of the "heritage" is bunk.

Any single malt scotch, on the other hand, is produced at a single distillery, sometimes using the same methods and stills they've used for a century or two. Many of the distilleries let you visit and see the whole process.

On the other hand, a high-end potato vodka will (apparently) have vaporized potato oils and various other aromatic stuff in there along with the ethanol. So that would impart some taste (as well as using good water).

Dave Arnold (trust me, an expert) has a story, from when he helped run the technical program at the French Culinary Institute, about procuring and diluting potable lab alcohol to 40% ABV and then (IIRC) triangle-testing it with other vodkas. The upshot: while 'animats isn't right about whiskey, he's pretty much dead-on about vodka. It's best thought of as an industrial product.

Relatedly, Arnold has said he prefers lab grade ethanol to everclear for infusion and redistillation purposes. The lab grade stuff apparently is much more neutral tasting.

From my experience with the people around me, I think people are just as likely to consider that an offtaste as a benefit.

That's how most whiskey, by quantity, is made already.[1] Frank-Lin Distillers' Products makes most of the low-end booze on the West Coast,

I have been to several distilleries and witnessed the them distilling and aging whiskey, and I can say that this is completely false (at least with respect to whiskey). It may be true for vodka, but that's the reason vodka is always used in mixed drinks.

> That's how most whiskey, by quantity, is made already.[1]

FYI your link to Frank-Lin describes a range of services including blending, and lists whiskey, bourbon and scotch. These may be created by fermenting and distilling grains, aged for years/decades in wood casks, and then finally sent to Frank-Lin for blending of multiple batches, but Frank-Lin isn't producing the liquor itself from ethanol. At least not in the case of bourbon or scotch.

That’s incredibly fascinating. Maybe extra so for me given how much Skyy vodka I’ve drank that one summer.

Any idea the min quantity for an order?

>Frank-Lin Distillers'

Is this a partnership between a white and chinese guy, or founded by a child of a white and chinese couple, or just a guy named Franklin?

If you’re in LA, I’d recommend visiting the Lost Spirits Distillery for their tour. It’s 1/3 tasting, 1/3 science lesson, 1/3 Mr. Toads Wild Ride. A great experience and their products are absolutely fantastic.

I'll shill the St. George distillery tour in the Bay Area. They make my favorite liquor by far.

One thing that I always wonder about with these sorts of things is the extent to which chirality comes into play.

Biological chemistry generally expresses strong chirality biases that do not result from inorganic reactions - but the chirality plays a huge role in terms of how organisms react to the chemicals.

If you can control the ratios of a chiral compound's enantiomers then it really is as simple as they say - just a number of compounds thrown together in appropriate ratios; but if not, it will be impossible to truly replicate the results of the standard process.

an interesting chirality story: The navy contracted John Frost [0] to make rocket fuel biologically. The normal route to butanetriol (the precursor to butanetrioltrinitrate, BTTN, the rocket fuel in sidewinder missiles) is via reduction of malic acid. In order to do this one must consume large quantities of boron, not terribly hard to obtain in the southwestern US, but the problem is that the partially oxidized borate salts are a bitch to clean up and quite toxic - I guess the Navy wanted a greener way to kill people. A biological route would make the entire process cleaner, and less costly.

The big problem, is of course, that 1,2,4 butanetriol is very much chiral. You might think that because it's gonna basically be burned who cares anyways, but actually since BTTN is a solid rocket propellant, having a different crystal symmetry can cause potentially undesired propellant effects in the bulk. We can't have a rocket that doesn't work, or perhaps worse, occasionally blows up, on the tarmac because of a teeny tiny difference in solid packing geometries.

So Frost had to build two biochemical pathways to the compound. Which he did (btw that is no small feat). The plan was to then combine them 1:1 before subjecting the product to nitration.

Then, just for S&G, they took one enantiomer and nitrated it. Turns out the nitration reaction is harsh enough to quantitatively racemize the compound.

[0] https://patents.google.com/patent/US7923226B2/en

In general, if I were doing biosynthesis for profit, I would probably not want to make anything that didn't have a value-add due to the chiral selectivity.

Wikipedia says:

l-forms of amino acids tend to be tasteless, whereas d-forms tend to taste sweet.[7] Spearmint leaves contain the l-enantiomer of the chemical carvone or R-(−)-carvone and caraway seeds contain the d-enantiomer or S-(+)-carvone.[10] These smell different to most people because our olfactory receptors are chiral.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirality_(chemistry)#In_bioch...

So they’ve figured out how to turn water (and ethanol and some reagents) into wine. Neat!

But I’ll believe that it’s good only after hearing about how it fares in blind taste tests.

I am hearing about lab-made wine for decade or two. There was famous experiment by some university in Japan that took Domain de Romanee Conti, which is one of the most expensive wine, analyze it on HPLC machine and then took precisely same compounds in same quantities and created another wine. After they mixed it they realised it was not good at all and doesn't really tasted as a wine.

The thing with wine is that it is structural: the taste and smells are created by letting compounds build into complex structures, those structures are build during growing as well as during fermentation. Just by examining some potentionaly compound(s) that are present in good wines and adding them to solution doesn't make a better wine.

Sure you might be able to use some cheap base wine and enhance it with flavouring to create bit better wine, but creating wine from scratch would be very difficult process. On the other hand, most of the industrial wines (those cheap wines in grocery shops) are created this way.

Blind tasting wine will probably not turn out great, since the color, price and bottle design can actually change the taste one perceives.

We already know that self proclaimed aficionados can’t tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine.

It’ll be interesting to see if they can tell the difference between authentic wine and lab-made.

I saw some vegan mince the other day that looked indistinguishable from the real thing.

Unless I misunderstand you, that’s an absurd overstatement at best.

My wife is a somm as are many of our friends. I joined in on many of their study sessions as each of them went through various phases of their certifications.

Granted I’m lucky to tell a Pinot from a Chardonnay, but watching trained Simms do blinds is impressive. It’s a mix of a very specific process - they work from “the grid”, picking apart specific properties of a taste one bit st a time - as well as incredible amount of practical knowledge that comes from tasting an absurd amount.

It’s another thing to say that tastes don’t necessarily correlate with price - any honest somm will tell you that. But anyone with a reasonable amount of experience can tell a $5 bottle of Cupcake or a two buck Chuck and something less industrial.

I know there’s a lot of excitement for lab made - it’ll rightly be seen as just another technique eventually.

I believe you're misunderstanding OP.

You're speaking of somms being able to distinguish flavor profiles - which of course is a skill and I don't think anyone would deny that.

What OP said is that cheap vs. expensive wine is indistinguishable (At times). There have been blind tastes tests with 2 Buck Chuck and expensive bottles, and 2 Buck Chuck won.

https://www.popsugar.com/food/Wine-World-Reels-2-Buck-Chuck-...

The flavor profiles of cheap and expensive wines don't really correlate so this argument is flawed. 2 Buck Chuck and other cheap bottles have flavor profiles that tend to be sweeter and less acidic when compared to more expensive bottles of wine, especially from the old world.

I think the correct statement is that most people actually prefer cheap "industrial" wine as it's more approachable (sweet with low acid), especially in youth, than many expensive bottles.

Even that article you linked to stated "There are those who feel that the results should not be taken into account as the judges are not true, trained wine professionals. The California State Fair competition is dismissed by some critics as representing broad-based consumer tastes rather than the palates of true wine connoisseurs."

Blinding the average Joe with cheap vs expensive wine is not a good barometer for the quality of said wines from an well seasoned wine drinker's perspective.

> We already know that self proclaimed aficionados can’t tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine.

We can? That is very interesting. Is there some article or reference material about this where I can read more about it?

Individuals who are unaware of the price do not derive more enjoyment from more expensive wine. In a sample of more than 6,000 blind tastings, we find that the correlation between price and overall rating is small and negative, suggesting that individuals on average enjoy more expensive wines slightly less. For individuals with wine training, however, we find indications of a non-negative relationship between price and enjoyment. Our results are robust to the inclusion of individual fixed effects, and are not driven by outliers: when omitting the top and bottom deciles of the price distribution, our qualitative results are strengthened, and the statistical significance is improved further. These findings suggest that non-expert wine consumers should not anticipate greater enjoyment of the intrinsic qualities of a wine simply because it is expensive or is appreciated by experts.

https://www.wine-economics.org/aawe/wp-content/uploads/2012/...

I see it more to be case of palate: people without wine training prefer cheaper wines, because they are build around primary aromas and might include some sugar or sweet tanins. It is like giving people tea with sugar or not. Most will prefer sugared version, producers of those cheap wines are aware of it and create their wines this way.

Expensive wine are usually more complicated and don't give you those basic pleasures, especially true for Old World Wines. It takes a while to people to build appreciation of those wines as there is huge culture component behind it.

You might see wine as pleasure giving beverage, in this case you are better with some nice fruit driven bottles which are usually cheaper.

Expensive wine are usually more complicated and don't give you those basic pleasures

But do the more expensive wines really give any more pleasure, or have people trained themselves to find it pleasing? Could someone be trained to appreciate the traits found in less expensive wines?

> But do the more expensive wines really give any more pleasure, or have people trained themselves to find it pleasing?

From my perspective, yes. A truly great wine is one that you want to sit with and follow from a palate and aromatic perspective over an evening or even a couple days. They evolve, improve, and continually impress from first sip to last.

2 Buck Chuck and other cheap "wines" doesn't evolve or improve, it's a static drink (for lack of a better term) that starts to degrade with oxidation in hours. If you tried to save a glass or two to look at the next day it would be borderline undrinkable.

What most people won't tell you though is that once you get to the $25+ per bottle wines there isn't much difference in those wines and the incredibly expensive ones. Furthermore most incredibly expensive wines aren't truly "great" wines and often disappoint in blind tastings. BUT (and it's a big BUT) every now and again you taste an expensive wine that is positively sublime. That's what keeps you coming back.

Thats actually good question. People do get trained to enjoy more complicated wines (they don't need to be more expensive, but they usually are).

I would use analogy with pop music and classical music or modern jazz. For a lots and lots of people your club-night-out pop music will give more pleasure than sitting in auditorium listening to Rachmaninoff.

Drinking wine and spending time learning to appreciate the wine are two very different paths. Whenever it is worth it is another question. But there are differences between cheap-industrial-pop wines and fine wines.

But doesn't that quote refute "We already know that self proclaimed aficionados can’t tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine." assuming aficionados would be considered expert wine consumers?

It seems like a bit of a grey area - I don't know how to classify a "self-proclaimed aficionado" -- is that someone that really knows wine, or just a wine enthusiast that knows less than they think? (as opposed to a professional sommelier who has had professional training and certification, or at least proven experience)

preferring the cheap stuff is not the same as not being able to distinguish between cheap and expensive stuff. These tasters can tell the difference, and prefer cheap

Thank you.

Cleveland Whiskey[0] is a few steps less science-y than what they're doing in TFA, but they're also pushing the limits of what some would consider traditional whiskey. After having sampled a couple bottles, I'd say I'm on board.

With products whose appeal is partly rooted in traditional craft, I realize that gaining mass-market acceptance for highly non-traditional production methods can be tough, but I'm one to let the results speak for themselves. It turns out you can get pretty good results if you're willing to push the envelope a bit.

[0] https://clevelandwhiskey.com/

the Endless West website says "All our flavors are naturally derived, meaning they come from plants and yeast."

when i read that i felt disappointed. for some reason i was hoping they gave themselves the freedom to use the full range of natural and artificial food-grade chemicals present in soft drinks, junk food and other consumer edibles.

Which flavors are fully synthesized as opposed being produced by normal creatures or genetically engineered E.coli or yeast?

I'm bad at chemistry. Really bad. I freely admit I don't have a good answer.

I was going to use Ethylvanillin as an example because it falls under the heading of "artificial flavor", but as I reflect on your question further, I gather that you're telling me that even things known as "artificial flavors" could be acceptable ingredients to Endless West because artificial flavors (like Ethylvanillin) ultimately are derived from chemicals that are derived from plants.

Reading up on the topic it seems like a lot more compounds than I thought are chemically manufactured. I thought the popular way was implanting yeasts with the genes for making the flavor. TIL.

It would be cooler if they made drinks with the taste and psychological consequences of alcoholic drinks but either without reduced brain function the next day, or with an antidote to take the same night. Or maybe made it simple and affordable to store and replace most of the blood in your body.

Similar story as Four Roses rye whiskey, they make most of the rye whiskey in the United States and it all gets relabeled and marked up by branding marketing etc...

Four Roses doesn't make a rye of any sort. I think you're thinking of Midwest Grain Products (the old Seagrams distillery), which does in fact supply rye distillate to a large number of whiskey bottlers.

This is false. I’ve been to Four Roses Distillery. Their operation doesn’t have anywhere near the capacity you are talking about.

It's false, but Four Roses has what was a few years ago the 7th largest whiskey still in the country (by capacity), larger than MGPI's, which is in fact the still that supplies most rye to bogus NDP "distilleries".

(MGPI rye is quite good, but you shouldn't pay a premium for it. They're finally doing their own bottlings now, which is good news for consumers.)

Yes, they are large. They just completed a $55 million expansion that will double their capacity (obviously bourbon has a significant lag-time).

Four Roses is owned by Kirin Holdings, one of the top alcoholic beverage conglomerates.

It was the case that the Four Roses brand was heavily tarnished for decades as a blended whiskey, when owned by Seagrams.

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