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Japanese firm Suntory wasn't the first distiller to get whisky to the International Space Station (ISS). Ardbeg Distillery has characterized samples of whisky sent to the ISS, finding hints of "antiseptic smoke, rubber and smoked fish, along with a curious, perfumed note, like violet or cassis, and powerful woody tones, leading to a meaty aroma."
That's the verdict of Dr Bill Lumsden, director of distilling and whisky creation at Ardbeg Distillery, which sent vials of its pre-maturation Ardbeg new spirit distillate aloft in 2011 to determine "the effect of micro-gravity on the behaviour of terpenes, the building blocks of flavour for whisky spirits as well as for many other foods and wines".
The experiment, organised by US space research outfit NanoRacks, involved mixing 6ml of the distillate ("the liquid resulting from distillation, which is normally filled into oak barrels for maturation") with "oak wood shavings from the inside of a charred American White Oak ex-Bourbon barrel".
The malt launched to the ISS in August 2011, returning to terra firma in September 2014. The liquid and control samples kept on Earth were then subjected to comparartive "gas chromatography (GC) for major volatile congener analysis, high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) for key maturation related congener analysis".
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The upshot of this, as revealed in Lumsden's paper The impact of micro-gravity on the release of oak extractives into spirit (PDF) is "no significant difference" in values of "major volatile congeners", such as alcohols, aldehydes, ketones and esters.
However, "significant variable between the ISS and Earth samples was discovered when the results of the HPLC analysis of key maturation related congeners (wood extractives) were considered... The absolute concentration of these compounds was far higher than would normally be expected in standard, barrel-matured spirit, almost certainly as a result of the much higher surface area of woody material that the spirit was exposed to," the paper explains.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 08 2015, @12:52PM
The only difference they found is due to the difference in physical storage (in barrel vs. wood chip mixture) ... nothing to do with gravitational difference.