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I'm really looking forward to trying a product of this system. As a fan of complex whiskies (mostly Scotch) and wild, chaotic rums, I'm wondering how close it can get to the myriad of flavors and textures those aged drinks provide. Differences in barrel types are immediately obvious in whisky - try Balvenie or other distilleries that offer different barrel-aging options.

I worry some, because as a musician, I'm all too familiar with the shortcomings of digital emulations of classic sounds. They can get 98%, but that last two percent is really bothersome and weak. I hope these new whiskies aren't like that!

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Off topic, but I'm always bothered when people say something like "It's the last 1% that counts the most". It's misleading to say that any single percentage point is more important than any other. If the last 1% is the most important, doesn't it make more sense to call it the last 99%?

I suppose if you are considering only the top percentiles of whatever you're talking about, it makes more sense. If you're only looking at the 95th-100th percentiles, then 1% of total quality is actually more like a 20% change in the space you're considering. But at that the same, to arbitrarily say that only things in the top 5 percent are worth considering is, well, arbitrary.

/rant

Not quite the same thing, but when I see low fat "2% fat milk", it sounds to me that there should be 2% by volume of visible fat spheroids... :)

Your milk also likely is labeled "homogenized", otherwise the fatty cream would indeed separate and float on top.

> Off topic, but I'm always bothered when people say something like "It's the last 1% that counts the most". It's misleading to say that any single percentage point is more important than any other.

Its actually valid when its related to something like the Pareto principle, when you are talking about which percent by one measure is important in consideration of some other measure.

In genetics, that last 2% is the difference between a human being and a chimpanzee.

Is it really the last, or just 2% spread across the code?

It's not the last.

Two words: uncanny valley.

If they get 98% of the flavor profile right and bring costs down substantially, they'd open up their products to a ton of people who can't currently afford to drink "40 year Scotch" but still want to try it/enjoy it. That's huge.

It won't kill the craft whiskey industry. If anything, it would make the "truly aged" whiskies even more niche and a higher luxury.

it will also open a counterfeit market, and yield countermeasures such as certification etc.

And make more targets for laughing at who worry about if their gemstone/champaigne/whiskey/painting/low oxygen platinum infused speaker cables are genuine or not when nobody can tell the difference.

If the end result is a quantum leap in the quality of “well whiskeys”, I won’t complain

See:

http://chuckcowdery.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-best-kept-secre...

...which is fine for buying at home, but doesn't help at a bar. The lowest of the low end is much better than 20 years ago, but is still a bit rough taste-wise.

That said, we don't appreciate the exponential rate of improvement in the low end of spirits and wine.

> That said, we don't appreciate the exponential rate of improvement in the low end of spirits and wine.

Really makes you wonder what actual navy rum or frontier whiskey tasted like 200 years ago.

There's good whiskey available for ~$20/bottle, or even less, so I'm not sure this market is a great new vista.

For what it's worth: what you're pitching is basically Templeton Rye (albeit for Scotch), which is also chemically "improved".

Any particular recommendations?

I'm not sure I'd like much at $20. For ~$30 you might start to get drinkable bourbon. Something like Evan Williams Single Barrel is good bang for the buck.

I've purchased W.L. Weller for as little as $12 a bottle, and it is, generally speaking, fantastic.

According to thewhiskeyjug.com, its median price is $17 for the Special Reserve.

In a marked note of irony, Pappy Van Winkle is oft-regarded as the best bourbon around, so people tend to consider "close enough to Pappy" as being a fantastic bourbon. In an interview once, Julian Van Winkle mentioned that he though W.L. Weller was "just about as good" as Pappy Van Winkle. Because Weller was, at the time, very inexpensive, and Pappy very much in the expensive category, there was a giant boom for Weller... so much so, that now some of the older bottles of Weller go for 4 figures. Hilariously, more than what it costs to buy a bottle of Pappy (though both are nearly impossible to find, and people do pay plenty for Pappy when they can find it.)

Of course there is! There's also good quality bread for $4/loaf, but there's still a market for higher quality specialty bread at $9/loaf.

An interesting bit to me is that even ultra-traditional distilleries have by now accepted that color can be matched through nontraditional means, and that doesn't seem to cause much trouble. Even single-malt Scotch, otherwise quite strictly regulated, permits artificial color additive E150 (but no other additives).

Admittedly color is probably comparatively easy to fake convincingly, especially in a uniform liquid setting where the color perception is not so complex. But that it's accepted even at the expensive "purist" levels does seem like already a chink in the armor of the idea that the only right way to do it is with a fully traditional method. A fully traditional method of coloring would leave it to whatever color is picked up from the mash and barrel-aging, and I could imagine someone arguing that only in that way do the aromas/flavors/colors subtly "match" properly. But it seems not to be seen as an issue.

E150 is caramel color.

As a side note, do Europeans memorize what each E number is?

Probably just as many as Americans who memorize what Red #40 is.

Americans don't have to memorize it, they see Red and know it's a color.

I know E150 but nothing else.

Plus yellow #5. Thanks to eminem.

Nope, but E150 is pretty well known because it is ... everywhere. But we do know that if whatever you buy has to many E numbers on its label its probably something you do not want to eat (That's a rule of thumb: Everything, even water, has a E number, but companies usually only put them on the labels for the not-so-nice stuff)

Not really, but people who care about that sort of thing often know the handful they are most worried about.

No, there are simply too many. Even gold has an E number (175).

People with allergies do remember the specific E numbers they have to watch out for.

The packaging often states what the E numbers are, either specifically or the general category (stabilizer, emulsifier, preservative, colouring, taste additive, ...).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_number

Caramel colour is widely used, but some whisky enthusiasts are opposed to it:

(2001) http://www.just-drinks.com/analysis/caramel-addition-may-pro... (2011) http://www.masterofmalt.com/Blog/post/Can-you-taste-Caramel-...

It's definitely an enthusiast/purist attitude, but common enough that some distilleries now specify "natural colour". Even large whisky producers like Diego have natural colour product lines:

http://www.diageo.com/en-row/ourbrands/categories/spirits/Pa...

The actual impact of artificial colour on taste/aroma/overall experience is likely negligible, but I wanted to point out that it is an issue to some.

I'm looking forward to the flavor experimentations that will result from this. Shortening the feedback loop, providing additional 'knobs' to turn, and reducing costs of trying new techniques will hopefully result in some amazing new tasty beverages.

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