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Ultrasound Machine Ages Wine
Inventor Casey Jones says his creation uses ultrasound technology to recreate the effects of decades of aging by colliding alcohol molecules inside the bottle. Mr. Jones said, "This machine can take your run-of-the-mill £3.99 bottle of plonk and turn it into a finest bottle of vintage tasting like it costs hundreds. It works on any alcohol that tastes better aged, even a bottle of paintstripper whisky can taste like an 8-year-aged single malt." The Ultrasonic Wine Ager, which looks like a Dr. Who ice bucket, takes 30 minutes to work and has already been given the thumbs up by an English winemaker. I know a certain special lady who is about to have the best bottle of Boone's Farm in the world.
You're right. Whiskey can't age in the bottle because it's absolutely sealed. Wine, on the other hand, has a cork through which air can seep oh so slowly. I'm thinking Mr. Jones' "invention" is nothing more than an ultrasonic bottle cleaner.
Yeah, the quack scientist who "discovered" this doesn't know the first thing about whisky, or wine for that matter.
What separates four-dollar (yes, the article says pounds, but in case you didn't realize, the UK has enormous alcohol excises that more than make up for the lousy exchange rate) wine from hundred dollar wine isn't that the more expensive is aged, it's that it's better made to begin with. Most cheap wine, if you age it, just gets worse over time. The region it's made in, the type of grape used, and the climate of particular vintage are what makes the biggest difference, an unaged bottle from a good vintage is usually far better than an aged bottle from a lousy one.
tl;dr Dude doesn't know what he's talking about.
When it gets the nod of a French winemaker or a vintner from California I'll be a little more intrigued.
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Have you tasted it in a blind taste test? Or are you, like most if not all "wine snobs," simply fooling yourself into thinking expensive==good?
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
I forget where I saw it on TV in the last six months or a year, but they did a test like that in a wine shop. Almost every single vinophile picked the cheap bottle of wine that they were told was more expensive over the aged bottled that was in reality the more expensive bottle.
I think the main mechanism for aging is slow oxidation. Therefore aging in a bottle only happens due to air moving through a cork. This is enough to subtly change the character of some wines; but I don't know a whole lot about whiskey chemistry. Also-- while aging in a cask imparts some 'vanilla' flavors/aromas, because of the oils/tannins in the oak, I do not think that whiskey spends a lot of time in an oak cask. Again, I'm ignorant about whiskey production in general, but I have made several oak-aged beers, and the flavor imparted by the wood happens fairly quickly. Actually, I completely spoiled a batch of cider this way-- I oak aged it for a month, which was enough to give it an intense 'whiskey' flavor. And from what I've seen wrt whiskey production, every new batch gets new wood, so they're not likely to leave it sitting around in oak for long enough to try to get flavors out of 'old' wood.
But you're right about the blended vs. single malt-- that's a crazy claim. For starters, blended scotch often lacks some of the odd character that comes with single malts, because it's been obscured by blending different batches. So this machine suddenly adds 'character' now? Sounds like magic.
Actually, I am calling you a wine snob. You're overlooking the question at hand, and the intended-value of the device:
Does it make (wine) taste better?
If it really does improve 'cheap' wine, then would not be worth (x money)? No, it doesn't replace the 'good' wine, but the inventor himself admits this.
We can all agree that we're adding science to wine that lacks art, but this doesn't really impact the design of the device...
I'm not sure what you are bitter about (anyone calling other people snobs tends to have a bone to pick for some reason unrelated to the argument at hand), but there are good reasons why expensive tends to equal good, and it is just plain sensible once you realize the expense that goes into making something better than the next thing over. One should not be blinded by this fact, because it is not always true, but you really do get what you pay for.
I saw that show, too. I think it was Makers Mark, which surprised me because I didn't realize they had such a long history.
That's also why, while single malts are often touted as the holy grail of scotch, blends can be just as enjoyable, and usually cheaper, too.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
This statement is nonsensical. Whisky, and any other alcoholic drink for that matter, has one and only one alcohol, ethanol, C2H5OH. At least, it better, since any other form of alcohol is quite poisonous.
"..now that I remember it, he insisted that we not be actually present when the machine was in operation. It had to do with the molecules and such, he said."
The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something; for the box might even be empty.
"The look and bouquet of the drink is improved and because of the chemical changes, the alcohol is easier to absorb by the kidneys and therefore, hangovers are virtually eliminated.
After reading that, I'm inclined to think this guy is clearly a con. This makes no sense, I don't believe it's possible to chemically modify the alchohol to make it easier to be cleaned out of the system, if it were chemically modified it wouldnt' be ethanol anymore. I could be wrong but I think the liver, not the kidneys, are the limiting step here. And hangovers aren't caused by leftover alchohol, a lot of the effects are due to dehydration, as alchohol acts as a diuretic to increase your urine output.
This guy is full of shit.
Ethanol, of course, is only MOSTLY poisonous.
maybe you can't turn fruit punch into pineapple juice, but who says you can't make it taste like it ?
Blue label is tasteless trash, loved by non Whiskey drinkers that show off spending money on Whiskey.
Plenty of $30 - $50 bottles have more flavor than Blue Label...
Johnny Walker is crap whiskey, though the Green Label has an interesting, distinctive flavor. Red label is passable as a mixer, and Black label is a cheap drink, but none of them are good whiskeys.