There is an apparently not apocryphal story about a Scottish University that was charged with helping develop a synthetic "scotch whiskey taste". The labs identified the complex molecules and started looking for ways to synthesise them. Amazingly one day they found someone able to supply just the chemicals - they ordered a large supply and it worked. The new additive gave a rich full body to poor scotch. They were about to tell the distilleries the good news when they decided to ask how fast the supplier could provide this - "oh about twenty years, you see we buy barrels from these distilleries in the Highlands and then ..."

Cannot at all remember who told me that, but it seemed apt.