The Dark Side of the ‘Angel’s Share’ (2019) | Hacker News Reader

The Dark Side of the ‘Angel’s Share’ (2019)

atlasobscura.com

71 pointsNoRagrets34 comments

Who knows, apart from regulatory capture, whisky may cease to exist the way we know it. Rapid aging processes are becoming more and more common every day.

Alternatives to natural aging in new oak barrels definitely exist but at this point they are still very much a novelty, at least in the bourbon market. To the best of my knowledge none have succeeded in creating the depth of flavor in the realm of 8+ year bourbons.

Do any of them do even that well? Do you have a recommendation?

No, I don't think they do — I generally hear comments like: hotter than expected, artificial taste, thin body, short finish, etc. I just wanted to establish a somewhat arbitrary "good" baseline somewhere.

If you are feeling experimental though, the ones that seem to be the most popular are:

- Cleveland Bourbon / Cleveland Underground

- Tuthilltown Hudson Baby Bourbon (but it appears to be recently discontinued / relaunched starting this month as a 3-year aged Hudson Bright Lights, Big Bourbon)

I'm not lining up to buy their bottles personally. The reviews on Distiller.com are pretty insightful.

For normally aged bourbon, I really like most of the Four Roses and Buffalo Trace products.

Thank you. I appreciate the advice.

Couldn't an open flame in the warehouse be enough to burn the ethanol evaporating and handle the problem ?

I’m pretty sure that would solve the problem for good.

No.

Such warehouses are shabby and drafty, in order for the barrels to expand and contract with the temperature changes in the weather. There is no chimney and nowhere with a thick concentration of vapours.

Same as adding systems to capture sulfur in chimneys (which previously was causing acid rain), this seems like externalized cost that needs to be clamped down. The warehouses will need to eat the cost to capture the ethanol vapours.

It's a solvable problem. The article mentions distilleries in California that have done so (likely because they're required to by the government there).

It's not that hard to make the warehouses relatively airtight and add a ventilation system that sends all the exhaust through a scrubber to remove the ethanol before exhausting to atmosphere. It's just that the local government there isn't requiring it and is instead allowing these negative externalities to be born by the residents, because the whiskey companies have more political power than these relatively poor residents.

A clear example of red state politics vs blue state politics.

Maybe it was myth, but during a tour of one aging warehouse, they talked about the weather's impact on the aging process -- temperature and airflow were factors.

These warehouses were basically large wooden barns with upgraded structural components. I think it would basically require a completely new structure to get any level of airtightness for many of these. And then some degree of study regarding the impact of these changed conditions on the aging process.

Still doable of course, but I don't think it's accurate to call it not "not that hard".

Surely running the exhaust through some sort of absorbent/condenser could both capture the alcohol for non-food purposes and deprive the mold of food?

That sounds like it might cost money.

It would also recover a useful substance.

And why spend money yourself when you can just let other people spend their own money cleaning up your mess.

After all a corporation’s civic duty is to maximize their profits so they can’t be expected to clean up their pollution when they can off load it for free!

Hashtag capitalism gone wrong.

> "... such as the ethanol-capturing equipment used by brandy distilleries in California."

In a market economy, I'm sure the distillery warehousers would be free to decide whether they'd rather capture their emissions or wash their neighbourhoods.

...or use their lawyers and political connections to make sure they don't have to do either of the above - unfortunately, it looks like this is the cheapest option.

This, most likely. And it isn't as if the whiskey industry is the only one benefiting from being able to ignore the pollution that they create. Though there is a move to change how this works, for the most part air pollution remains something for which we all pay the price, collectively, regardless of its origin.

I imagine the alcohol concentration in the air is extremely low, making this quite hard work.

The article mentions "ethanol-capturing equipment used by brandy distilleries in California", but i couldn't find anything about capturing emissions from ageing. There are a couple of systems for capturing alcohol emissions from fermentation, but that's a different problem:

https://www.aromatica.io/process

http://nomovo.com/

I wonder what the overall concentration of alcohol released per second is.

> 200 to 1,000 tons of ethanol emissions every year.

200 to 1000 tons / year = 200 to 1000 tons * 907185 (g per ton) / (365 * 24 * 60 * 60 s per year) = 5.7 to 28g / s

Very roughly the equivalent of one shot of vodka every second (presume 1.5 fl oz = 44g total and vodka is half-ish alcohol). But, that's spread out over "hundreds of thousands of barrels". So each barrel is releasing ~100-300 micrograms of alcohol per second.

I'm sure it's measurable in the air, but capturable? Hard to say.

Presumably all the barrels sit in just a few buildings.

At the very least it should be relatively cheap to destroy by passing the air through something like a blowtorch.

I wonder how they’re doing it in Scotland. You see the same mold on distillery structures, but nothing really noticeable on the surrounding houses.

well, this sucks. you cannot enclsoe the barrels in a air-controlled room since that will siply stop the agin process qutie a bit. not to mention the size of the warehouses. i think the people should just move away if possible since this is a zero sum game.

I'm just an armchair critic, like most folks on this issue.

However I don't see how it wouldn't be possible to retain the airflow - use large extractor fans with filtering equipment. Create a slightly negative-pressure environment in the warehouse to ensure the majority of the airflow goes through

Sure, they're massive warehouses, and it'd need correspondingly a large number of high capacity fans and the associated filtering gear - but I don't see this requiring massive innovations.

The article even says that Brandy distillers in California use similar equipment.

Even a regular air conditioner in the same sealed room would extract the ethanol. It wouldn't be expensive, and might even be profitable if it turns out the "angels share" is sellable (which it might well turn out to be).

Running an air conditioner in the room shouldn't stop the aging process.

The temperature or pressure differences may be what causes much of the aging, push the spirits in and out of the casks, taking flavor from the wood back into the spirits. Either way, it must be possible.

But I guess it's cheaper to do nothing, except just responding to litigation.

Frankfort, one of the affected cities featured in the article, is the capital city of Kentucky. Do you think the best solution to this problem is to move the capital city somewhere else? Because of warehouse emissions?

>you cannot enclsoe the barrels in a air-controlled room since that will siply stop the agin process qutie a bit

Rackhouses are already build air control into their design, they just don't care where the air containing alcohol vents to.

If preventing the alcohol in the air from entering the atmosphere were a design goal, a negative pressure design is an obvious implementation that maintains flow. Although a sealed barn could work too, if it had a recirculating processing loop that maintains the air properties conductive to aging. -- Using such a system might even be a positive for bourbon makers by giving them direct control over the level of ambient dissolved alcohol during the aging process.

It always strikes me as odd that the population in these areas grows (as with places that suffer from noise pollution from airplanes) which seems to cause part of the issue. Would people who mind this not moving there in the first place not be a solution?

Disclaimer: I am not of the opinion that this should not be handled properly, am just wondering if people are actually moving somewhere and then complaining and how to empathize with people doing that.

edit: also I think it looks cool, who minds the fungus to begin with?

"Many people who live near Kentucky’s distilleries say the problem has worsened as bourbon’s popularity has soared. According to the Kentucky Distillers Association, 68 distilleries dot Kentucky, a 250 percent increase in one decade. "

So the problem has become much worse over a short period of time. The article also covers that many residents have low incomes and home values are low. It is difficult to relocate when you're poor.

I'm sure you could also bring yourself to empathize with the fact that this is where people grew up, have their families, and friends. Why should it be an individual burden to move your entire life because some local business finds it more profitable to pollute than clean up?

From the article it seems it was assumed to just be soot for a long time which was considered normal in many places until we got more serious about pollution.

Check out the before and afters with soot here it's very similar https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/incoming/gallery/bla...

You're a piece of S.

F the poor as long as it doesn't affect me?

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