Japanese whisky heads to space

Whisky demand rocketed in Japan last year after national broadcaster NHK aired a period drama called “Massan”, the true story of a Japanese entrepreneur and his Scottish wife who are credited with establishing Japan’s first whisky distillery.

Tokyo-based Suntory, a brewing and distillery company, announced today that it will send six samples of its whiskies and other alcohols to the global Space Station (ISS) next month, in order to observe the effects of zero-gravity on the aging process.

Alas, according to the press release, the point of the mission is not to provide astronauts with fine whiskey, but to test the way zero-gravity affects the ageing and taste of the liquor.

The renowned Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible 2015 named Suntory’s Yamazaki Single Malt Sherry Cask 2013 the best whisky in the world.

The company has conducted collaborative research which suggests the probability that mellowness develops by promoted formation of the high-dimensional molecular structure in the alcoholic beverage in environments where liquid convection is suppressed. A Suntory spokesperson tells The Wall Street Journal that the samples being sent to space include a 21-year-old single malt and a drink that has just been distilled.

The aim of the endeavour is to study the “development of mellowness in alcoholic beverage through the use of a microgravity environment”.

“On the basis of these results, the space experiments will be conducted to verify the effect of the convection-free state created by a microgravity environment to the mellowing of alcoholic beverage”, the company said in a statement.

Half of the samples will return to Earth after one year while the other half will remain in space for an additional year.

The whiskey’s launch date is August 16, when it will fly aboard JAXA’s transfer vehicle Kounotori.