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Whisky Aged On NASA's International Space Station Tastes "Different"
MarkWhittington writes: Back in October 2011 Ardbeg Distillery on Islay, the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, sent a vial of whisky to the International Space Station courtesy of Houston based Nanoracks. The idea was the see if microgravity affects the way that whisky ages, particularly the way terpenes that are the building blocks of food and liquors behave. A similar vial was kept on Earth as a comparison. The BBC reported that the contents of the two vials were sampled and compared. As it turns out, pronounced differences were noted.
That's the sort of science that I like!
Elok
Whiskey ages in barrels over a period of years, if not decades. A vial in free-fall changes nothing.
This just shows the kind of desperate marketing space needs now to hold interest. An empty, hostile vacuum can only hold interest for so long.
What's next? Useless plastic crap 3D printed in space is mysteriously better too I guess?
From the article:
The ISS is supposed to have a unique aroma. I wonder if that is what got absorbed by the whiskey.
The real Question... Which one tasted better?!
I didn't read too far, but how was the impact of aging in space disambiguated from the impact of the transportation process? Shaking and high accelerations come to mind as potentially significantly impacting the whisky. We certainly know these to affect beer...
It's for PR.
This is PR. You read an ad.
Can you explain why a tin can that's still in the upper atmosphere counts as "space research" in your mind? We built the damn thing, what's to research? You can do far more by staying right here in your computer chair and studying the latest pictures from telescopes, or unmanned cameras on wheels.
Whisky is aged in wooden barrels...they just put it in glass bottles to sell it...
I've heard of studies where wine tasters offered different opinions based on what they THOUGHT the wine was (including white wines dyed red), so I'm curious how this test was performed. Did the tester know which one was from the ISS? Was there more than one tester?
I'm curious if they did GCMS analysis on the two samples. Then we can actually get some numbers rather than subjective taste reviews.
"Zero-G" whiskey would obviously be much more expensive, which, by definition, makes it better.
In what way is that ISS Nasa's (as the headline [and the article] claims)?
It's one thing to say that this idiotic experiment was run on the United States Orbital Segment but the headline seems to imply NASA's ownership and right of use.
I support space research......but couldn't they find anything more important to study?
MORE important than WHISKY?
That sound you just heard was my head exploding.
#DeleteChrome
Yes, cognac.
Mostly random stuff.
One of the things they do for science up there is to see if normal things end up different simply because of the microgravity. After all, one day this stuff might be the basis towards long term, deep space voyages.
Besides which, I doubt they all sat down and twiddled their thumbs for 4 years while the whisky aged. Jesus, if they managed to fit this into their otherwise busy schedule then all the better. :P
With "antiseptic smoke, rubber, and smoked fish"
I love a hint of fishiness in my whiskey...
Here's a picture following the tasting....
http://previews.123rf.com/imag...
Yes, the space station was built for a single purpose. Space Whisky. For the past 17 years this is the best they have done. They may now come home to a hero's welcome for a job well done. You know they do other things up there, right? http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pa...
Port you heathens.
Earth sample: "The sample had a woody aroma, reminiscent of an aged Ardbeg style, with hints of cedar, sweet smoke and aged balsamic vinegar, as well as raisins, treacle toffee, vanilla and burnt oranges.
"On the palate, its woody, balsamic flavours shone through, along with a distant fruitiness, some charcoal and antiseptic notes, leading to a long, lingering aftertaste, with flavours of gentle smoke, tar and creamy fudge."
Space sample: "Its intense aroma had 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.
"The taste was very focused, with smoked fruits such as prunes, raisins, sugared plums and cherries, earthy peat smoke, peppermint, aniseed, cinnamon and smoked bacon or hickory-smoked ham. The aftertaste is intense and long, with hints of wood, antiseptic lozenges and rubbery smoke."
From the given descriptions, I can make no prediction as to how the flavor of one would differ from the other. The description contains only differences that I would expect from two booze tasters tasting the same booze, or from one booze taster tasting the same booze twice but thinking it's different. Or perhaps someone could translate it to English for me?
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"One of the things they do for science up there is to see if normal things end up different simply because of the microgravity."
Which is precisely why, as the previous poster indicated above, a precise analysis of the returned vial would have been more helpful than some guy tasting it.
The article doesn't even mention if the tasting was a blind experiment. If it wasn't, even the tasting's results are totally insignificant.
I'd be interested in a study about beer brewing in micro-gravity. Specifically, how yeasts handle such atypical conditions. Would have some practical purposes, besides the booze.
There's nothing like $HOME
That makes two of us.
But without someone tasting it you couldn't get such important insight such as:
Its intense aroma had 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.
and
The taste was very focused, with smoked fruits such as prunes, raisins, sugared plums and cherries, earthy peat smoke, peppermint, aniseed, cinnamon and smoked bacon or hickory-smoked ham. The aftertaste is intense and long, with hints of wood, antiseptic lozenges and rubbery smoke.
I mean, c'mon. Isn't some douchebag foodie's wet dream more important than scientific analysis?
These people just make up random descriptions. I thought I was reading wine reviews.
If there actually was a difference in taste (and that's a big "if" given the lack of proper testing protocol), it seems much more likely to me that it was due to radiation rather than microgravity.
Seriously, 3 years of unfulfilled temptation? Such a vial wouldn't survive very long on the Mir.
But then, vodka doesn't benefit so much from aging.
Maybe the god-knows-how-many-G launch acceleration and/or the travel back down had some impact as well.
Did they also include vials to test right after arrival and right before departure?
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It sounds like what they did was take whisky that had not been aged yet, put it in a glass vial with piecies of the charred oak barrels and sent it up to the ISS. They then compared this to the whisky of the same batch which had been properly aged in oak barrels.
Obviously this is going to age differently, as it would age differently if the same vials were on Earth. I doubt that if treated with the same temp, darkness and lack of turbulence that it would be any different from the same vials aged on Earth.
However, there's a reason why we don't age whisky by simply storing it in tanks with charred chunks of oak.
Instead we keep them in oak barrels that are aged in varying temperatures that cause expansion and contraction, bringing the whisky in and out of the wood. The whisky is also aged for varying amounts of time to reach the perfect taste characteristics based on the conditions they experienced.
Certainly though, those that commissioned the "experiment" were far more interested in marketing than science.
I saw no mention of double blinding in the taste test, to eliminate the placebo effect, notorious for affecting evaluation of alcohol, expensive audio cables vs. cheap, and StradIvarious violins vs. modern.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Chromatography or similar would be required. Human can delude themselves into seeing different taste. A chromatography much less so. Although it would be probably difficult as the terpene are in very small quantity, the pronounced different taste should lead to some differences.
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Of course they tasted different. Due to relativity, the one on the ground aged longer.
I guess the difference is a result of gravitational time dilation, known from Einstein's theory of relativity. The whiskey at the orbit became at least couple of nanoseconds older.
To be a valid they would need to have at least three sample tested by each person. Some would be given 2 Earth whiskies, some 2 space whiskies, some 3 Earth whiskies and some 3 space whiskies. That way it is easier to weed out biases in this very subjective test. Presenting someone with two samples and asking what are the differences biases the tester towards finding differences when none exist.
Did they account for the G forces experience by the whiskey then went into orbit?
Since when does the ISS belong to NASA? The headline is misleading - other countries own the majority of it, and Russia is already planning to recycle their bits when the ISS is scrapped.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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Beyond the gravity, wouldn't the extra radiation affect things as well?
Let's send a case of Lagavulin on the next re-supply and a box of Advil to see what else might be different in space. If anything...
The article has no indication of the measures taken to equalize other factors such as light, pressure and temperature.
It also appears that this experiment was done with a sample size of 1?
Star board aged port? You'll have your hands full with confused seamen.
I support space research......but couldn't they find anything more important to study? If that's the best they can do, they might as well shut the station down.
They article doesn't even mention whether they did a chemical analysis. Why not run it through a spectrograph? That seems like a normal thing to do. Instead, they just had some guy taste it.
It's the first step towards creating a proper Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster.
Actually, when people say "Couldn't they find anything more important to study?" it makes me itch. It's in studying the so-called "unimportant" things that we often get the most benefits. Read some of Einstein's idle musings and see how geniuses gain insight into the Universe.
And whisky is intended to be experienced by the senses. A spectrometric analysis can tell about chemistry, but it's not going to be a very good guide about how people will react to the differences.
Someday someone is likely to become a billionaire selling "Space Whiskey". Or it might turn out that orbitally-aged potables become a vital part of anti-nausea therapy for cancer patients. Or something completely unimaginable.
But if we leave it to the people who only want to study "important things", we'll never know.
Sounds like the one aged in space tasted worse. So the obvious consequence is to now let barrels age while kept in very smooth-running centrifuges, namely under higher gravity but without stirring them (Foucault may sabotage that plan, so maybe we better locate those centrifuges in Antarctica where we can really make them stir-free).
Probably worthwhile in terms of how to confine potentially dangerous substances, and the benefits to fermented foods in space.
I *really* wouldn't like to experience a vigorous wort fermentation in a confined space. You know it produces CO2 and ethanol?
OTOH, kimchi would be a BLAST!
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
You'll have your hands full with confused seamen.
After which you have your face full with produced semen.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
I...guess I meant to post that as AC.
HEY! What's over there?!
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
They never say the thing tastes like what it is. Never does wine have a "distinctive note of fermented grapes". I also love to read a couple tasting notes about the same thing. One will say "citris, vanilla and anise" another "watermelon", "bacon", "chocolate". Without fail they seem to have complete different components. Then you get in the room with a wine or whiskey snob and watch them discuss the "peach note" in the drink. Fantastic.
You and your puny Earthling beverages!
Classy stuff. And funny.
I support space research......but couldn't they find anything more important to study?
MORE important than WHISKY?
That sound you just heard was my head exploding.
BEER man, BEER. We need space research on BEER.
http://www.scotch-whisky.org.uk/understanding-scotch/faqs/
How should I store my Scotch Whisky?
Unlike wine, whisky does not mature in the bottle. So even if you keep a 12 year old bottle for 100 years, it will always remain a 12 year old whisky. As long as the bottle is kept out of direct sunlight, the Scotch Whisky will neither improve nor deteriorate, even if it is opened. Whisky that is stored at very low temperatures can become cloudy, but the cloudiness should disappear when the whisky is returned to room temperature.
They actually did a precise chemical analysis, in addition to tasting the whisky.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/science/space-whisky-glass.html?_r=0
The article says that the whisky had lower amounts of compounds that are typically extracted from the oak. Most of what I could find online is pretty light on the details of what's different chemically, but there was definitely more done than tasting.
M-I-Z
kU still sucks!
Surely - this article and it's subject are bound to throw up both a Pulitzer AND a Nobel!!
Raw data from study on space whiskey:
Woody, cedar, sweet smoke, gentle smoke, rubbery smoke, aged balsamic vinegar, raisins, treacle toffee, vanilla, burnt oranges, charcoal, antiseptic, tar, creamy fudge, rubber, smoked fish, violet, cassis, meaty, focused, smoked fruits, prunes, sugared plums, cherries, peat, peppermint, aniseed, cinnamon, smoked bacon, hickory-smoked ham, antiseptic lozenges.
All on 'NASAs' ISS? I wonder what Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan and Canada think of this hostile takeover of the satellite by NASA. Wasn't the word 'International' in it's name somewhere? Ah well. At least it is not a sovereign nation this time.
much scienz. so brave. budget amaze.
Is it the goal seeked science originated by marketing departments that you like?
Did you really think that after oodles of money was spent on this "experiment" that the answer would be "it tastes the same"?
This is reminiscent of the space souvenir industry in the 1970's, where trinkets that had been "in space" possessed some fetishistic value for collectors.
This isn't science at all. The determination of "it tastes different" was made by those with the profit motive to declare as much.
This is the sort of "science" that nobody should like.
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with a strong after taste of bullshit!
That is how it works dude. If you have ever tried to describe taste to another person you could understand what the problem is. Besides it becomes less ambiguous when trained people talk with each other - they do seem to travel on the same speed, platform and can exchange opinions about beverages that have some meaning to each other. Mortals like us should just concentrate on drinking. Some of use after gaining some experience can start distinguishing differences in descriptions also with a taste buds but the rest recognizes the taste by looking at the receipt.
They still should have done spectral analysis just to see what differences in aging processes are.
"I didn't know you brought liquor on board... it is forbidden."
"You think I'd set foot on this top sober?"
2010, Odyssey 2
GO (fuck yourselves) NASA!!
What's NASA got to do with this?
This was the result of Ardbeg Distillery being invited by a company called NanoRacks to send a vial of whiskey up in a Russian rocket to the International Space Station - which is run by five participating space agencies, only one of which is NASA.
You want to damn an entire agency because a single vial of liquid was taken into space? I'm sure there have been plenty of experiments on different food stuffs in space, but you think that on this occasion this one example shows them to be a sham. Sorry, but that is a textbook case of overreaction. I bet you are still hurt from having your crayon-written application to be an astronaut denied. Or maybe you are just mad that NASA keep producing findings of studies that are at odds to your beliefs about global warming.
Plus, FINALLY, they tell us exactly how they 'aged' the whisky (normal aging entails long-term storage in 'previously used' charred oak barrels).
In the Ardbeg experiment, 32 vials, each with six milliliters of unaged whisky, were sent to the space station in 2011 and then mixed with oak shavings. After 971 days of aging, the whisky returned to Earth last year to be compared with samples that had been aged on the ground. Dr. Lumsden and a panel of experts sniffed and tasted, and he ran them through a battery of chemical analyses.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
You read the Stradivarius conclusion incorrectly. Here is a discussion. Educate yourself.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Your $100 billion space station at work. Whiskey is new on the space station. Vodka, not so much.
Your user name makes it more humorous, user formerly known as "fisted". Thanks for reminding me to check the Anon box, and good luck selecting your new account name.
Sorry, but considering that tens of thousands of pages have been written on the subtle nuances of wine flavors, yet blindfolded wine experts couldn't actually distinguish between red and white varieties, I'm guessing the fine distinctions of whiskeys are pretty much the same.
http://www.theguardian.com/lif...
It's certainly credible that a chemical reaction taking place in an environment without convection or gravity, etc might proceed differently in some respects, but I'm going to file this one down around "monster sound cables give you cleaner sound" in the authenticity-file.
-Styopa
The whitepaper from the study is here: http://www.ardbeg.com/CDN/ardbeg-media/ardbeg/supernova/ARD9109SupernovaWhitePaperA4.pdf
In it, they explain:
1. The method: They took the distillate (the raw spirit that comes out of the distillery, which normally gets put into aging barrels) and put it into special double-ended vials with a glass barrier in the middle. Then they put oak shavings in the other end. They did this with lots and lots of samples, sent some up to the space station and kept some on earth. Then at a predetermined time in January 2012, they broke the glass barrier in all the vials to mix the oak and the distillate together and start the aging, which continued until September 2014.
2. The science: They used gas chromatography, high pressure liquid chromatography, and mass spectrometry to compare the compounds and concentrations in the samples. Details are in the white paper, but basically they found that there was very little change in the components that come from the distillate (alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, esters, phenols), but that microgravity slowed down the release of "maturation congeners", the things that get extracted from the wood. What's interesting is that the effect was different on certain congeners - some were slowed down a lot, some were slowed down a little. So, the things that make whiskey taste like whiskey were in very different concentrations from the earth samples. That's dumbing it down a bit - the paper notes that a lot of Ardberg's flavor comes from phenols, which come in at distillation - but that's the basic difference between them. (Side note: Phenols decrease in whiskey during maturation - the paper notes that there was very little difference in phenols between the samples and they expected very little difference in taste and aroma, but were surprised by the results of the taste testing.)
3. The tasting: They did triangle testing - three samples, two are the same, one is different, ask the tester to pick the odd one out. They found "a high number of correct responses, with almost all participants picking out a difference between the ISS and control samples". The tasting notes mentioned in TFA came from those participants - they don't explicitly say, but imply that the notes were given during the triangle test and therefore are at least single-blind. They don't mention double-blind at all, and don't give any raw data to investigate further, which is obviously and inherently suspicious. But, assuming they aren't outright lying, the triangle testing suggests at least a noticeable difference in how the whiskey tasted.
I suppose that if you get to send stuff up into space for experiments like this, everyone involved makes sure that you have your ducks in a row when it comes to basic science. Nevertheless, I have to ask: they kept both samples at exactly the same temperature, right?
And the microgravity one didn't have the whiskey frequently coming into contact with a stopper or cap, with the Earth gravity one having a constant layer of gas (air or CO2 or something) in between, right?
Right? I ass/u/me so.
(I do think think it's plausible they would taste different from gravity alone, but for some reason, it's hard for me to ignore fears of a botched experiment. There's something about the photo of two different containers, that makes me wonder if they were really stored the same way. I have to be wrong, though. Please, someone tell me I'm wrong.)
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n/t
Romulan ale
That makes three of us.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
The results where inconclusive, so I suggest that we organize additional experiments which include public taste testing up to and including intoxication and long term experiments which address the long term affects of light to moderate "Space Aged Spirits" consumption.
Too expensive you say? Not so, sell raffle tickets for a chance to be part of the study to varying degrees with the grand prize being a lifetime supply of Space Aged Spirits to offset the costs. Heck, it the stuff is good enough, you could make enough money to fund the launch of a couple of barrels a year with a bunch of extra space for things like replacement parts and crew members... Heck, if it's good enough, we might be able to fund all of NASA doing this...
Drinking Whiskey enters the space age..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You want to damn an entire agency because a single vial of liquid was taken into space?
Only if it was over 3 ounces.
That was what I was looking for the entire article, too bad they didn't. As for the space whiskey, it sounds atrocious.
ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
formerly
I don't think this word means what you think it means.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Who are we going to send the bill to?
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ma...
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
, if you bothered to RTFA, they analyzed the samples using GC, HPLC, and GC/MS, and found various quantitative differences to explain the qualitative differences found via taste testing.
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Doesn't the local climate also contribute to a whisky ripening in a cask ? For example whisky ripening in peat areas have a distinct touch. Might be hogswash from the whiskey makers though, just thought this might be relevant
Apparently there's a lot of cock-suckin goin on around here...
it doesnt? ...inconceivable
Ardbeg? Well no wonder it tasted funny.
They can take my LifeAlert pendant when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
Having tasted kimchi recently, I'll stand with sauerkraut personally. Although the kimchi I tasted was exceedingly spicy. For my taste anyway.
There's nothing like $HOME
What would be more important to Ardbeg Distilleries than the ageing of a single malt scotch whiskey? Why should NanoRacks care what a company sends to space as long as they pay their bill and don't jeopardise other payload?
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I support space research......but couldn't they find anything more important to study?
MORE important than WHISKY?
That sound you just heard was my head exploding.
These Millennials just don't have an appropriate values system, I blame the educational system.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Beer doesn't work in micro-gravity, the sediment doesn't settle out of the wort, and what happens to the head when you pour a glass is just obscene.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
So, did they have any "mixed with oak shavings" whisky aged on Earth as a control?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Since you're the expert we'll have to defer to your experience.
I think they imply that when they mentioned they broke the glass on their MixStix(tm) on Earth: From the PDF, emphasis mine:
... in January 2012, the experiment was initiated, as the astronauts broke the glass separating walls in the individual MixStix(TM), thus allowing the distillate and the oak wood shavings to come into contact with each other. At the same time on Earth, we initiated the control experiment by breaking the separating wall in my MixStix(TM) on Islay (which had been sent back to me at Ardbeg Distillery from NanoRack’s laboratories in Houston, USA).
So it looks like Ardbeg sent hooch and shavings to NanoRack in Houston, they created two (identical?) MixStix, and sent one to Russia to be boosted and the other back to Islay.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Yeah, that's the ticket! It tastes "different". You don't believe me? Try it! You don't have any? Well, we'll have to ship some more up there then. That's going to be awfully expensive, so I'll have to charge extra for it. This might make the "angel's share" easier to collect. Maybe there will be an "astronaut's share" as well. Yeah, that'll do it. "Every time an astronaut gets his bell rung, an angel gets his share."
Words, words, words
The space whiskey tastes like burnt rubber. At least we now know they practice safe sex.
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