20-Year-Old Whiskey in 6 Days: Will This Self-Taught Chemist Upend the Liquor Industry?
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- Опубликовано: 8 май 2018
- Distiller Bryan Davis says he can give you a bottle of 20 year old booze in just six days thanks to new technology he created.
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Why does a well-aged glass of smokey whiskey taste so good? It's all about the chemistry of sitting in a barrel for decades. "The polymer structures make the wood slowly fall apart," says Bryan Davis, a pioneering distiller who learned the science of liquor production by watching MIT classes on RUclips. "They shed all of these precursor chemicals that turn into different stuff that tastes really good." This time-consuming process is the reason distillers have to charge five figures for a top-shelf bottle.
Not anymore. Davis, cofounder of the Los Angeles-based Lost Spirits Distillery, has figured out a way to compress a 20-year aging process into about six days.
Davis created a reactor that mimics the natural aging process of booze left in a barrel. The result: bottles of spirits with the same chemical signature as those aged for the lifespan of a young adult. His products have won multiple awards, and the technology could transform the aged spirits market by bringing bottles that used to cost more than $1,000 within reach of the masses.
The liquor world has been forbidding to small distillers since the repeal of Prohibition. When Davis and Joanne Haruta (his significant other and business partner) arrived in Monterey, California, more than a decade ago, they wanted to get into the aged whiskey and rum market. First they needed to raise half a million dollars.
"We would just be literally sitting there going, 'OK, we'll sell our first bottle of booze when I'm 60," you know?'"
In search of short cuts, Davis decided to study the chemistry of a well-aged bottle of booze. He began by watching RUclips videos of MIT chemistry classes, pausing only to look up vocabulary words on Wikipedia.
"You can just sort of tunnel your way down the rabbit hole until all of a sudden one day you read a paper and go, 'Wow, I understood everything that said,'" he says.
By 2013, Davis had figured out how to force the chemical reaction called "esterification"-the main driving force behind barrel aging. But he couldn't come up with a natural way to break the polymer structures in a wooden barrel, which is what gives a well-aged bottle its taste. One day, while thinking about how he had to replace the sun-damaged wooden deck attached to his mobile home, he had an epiphany: By blasting wood with light, he could speed up the process of degrading wood.
Today Davis licenses his technology to other distillers, and his invention is the talk of the industry. An art major in college, Davis wants to bring an artistic sensibility back to liquor-making, pushing the limits of the form. He dreams of a future when liquor-store shelves are lined with bottles that customers don't recognize.
"I sort of view myself as that same antagonist to those canonistic systems," he says.
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Photo Credits:
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3:43 i have a sudden urge to play Kerbal Space Program.
The guy actually looks somewhat like Jebediah Kerman in human form.
Fun fact: Most of Kerbal's music is royalty free. Thus why you sometimes hear the 'VAB' music in other places, and one of the orbit themes here.
I’m suprised noone ever thought about using UV light to age alcoholic drinks before.
But i do love the fact he learned chemistry himself through the internet, it has the power to revolutionize education as a whole.
Adam Zítka Funny it doesnt seem they are using the correct uv lighting either, just a 250w hps light and some heat to speed steep the batch with wood.
Hps does make uv, but you could be much more efficient with the right bulbs.
Red herring?
If he used LED lights tuned to the right energy levels he could increase his efficiency and speed by several orders of magnitude.
Sunlight skunks out beers and wines. In fact that's how IPA developed. By the British lol. When they shipped it to India over sea they would say the extra hoppy ones were better, cus the taste would blend with the skunked beer and high alcohol content woumd prevent it as well! So came ipa.
@@trevorfichtner3539 correct. That's partly why Heineken has green bottles and corona advertises drinking with lime as to hide the skunk flavor fortunately for them, most don't know any better
I have been making home made whisky by putting charred oak chips in mason jars on my window sill for a while now.
You are an American innovator. Everyone in college should see this. All you need is an idea and work. Learn what you need to do solve your dream.
This guy is going to piss allot of people off. 😂
remember to allot a lot of time to find parking in the public lot...
a lot*
It won't ever be the same as anything 20 years old but it can certainly be good. This stuff is pretty straightforward: shake well-distilled alcohol with wood dust at elevated temperature. Done: more or less the same chemistry (and its amount) taking place in a small fraction of time. Just filter well afterwards.
I want to see how his products stand up to others in blind taste tests. Most posh foods don't.
maybe not... but, that's the great thing about innovation and competition - the market will decide.
He’s hitting 94 and 95 points from some of the top professional and snobs in the world.....I’d say he’s doing something right!!! Even as it flies in the face of the draconian traditional that force insane prices for a small amount of liquid out of those willing to pay the premiums.
@@69CamaroSS proof?
RedboRF www.lostspirits.net/awards
you missed the point
Took my 1st of many to come tours on June 1st 2019. I must say it was amazing. The crying of the puma scotch is amazing. Got myself 3 bottles.
$50 and up puts them close to the existing Islay age statements. I was expecting them to really undercut the competition and shock me.
Unfortunately the governments cut forces the price up. It is stupidly expensive to get the licences and cover the constant inspections.
I about passed out when he explained what he did to the antique furniture.
One man's trash lol
For a good cause :)
1. I've found that the best way to do a project you want to do is to start and figure it out as you go. Sometimes you might fail but experience is the best way to learn. Obviously plan well, but just do it.
2. I can imagine the electricians thoughts when he asks to disconnect all his power and route it to lighting in his barn.
I wonder what other kinds of organic materials you could dissolve with radiation into booze. Also I absolutely love it how when an industry gets oligopolistic and enshrined they get the government to cover their backs against newcomers, but someone just goes and outcompetes them anyway. This guy is the Elon Musk of liquor !
Cheers
Stuff like this is why I subbed to Reason. Keep it up!
What an AWESOME story! I love that Reason does these kinds of videos!
I made 2 gallons of sour mash beer and then I filtered it siphoned it and concentrated in the freezer several times until it wouldn't freeze anymore now I got a really good tasting freezer whiskey I currently got it soaking with some Jack Daniels wood chips that I've used before but I just put them in the air fryer so they're good to go again
Congratulations you’ve made probably the worst possible thing you can drink. If this was possible company’s would do it. There’s a reason they don’t. One as the alcohol content increases with each freeze distillation the next freeze has to be much cooler. 100+ proof and your talking -130F degrees ... but more importantly when ethanol or whiskey is distilled the more harmful chemicals are then concentrated. Where they may not bother you when drinking a beer because the bad stuff is well spread out in many gallons... when distilling and concentrating the ethanol into one smaller higher proof amount you are left with an also concentrated amount of all of those terrible things you don’t want to drink. During distillation they’re discarded since they vaporize at a much lower temp and come off first (methanol @ 145). Once that temp threshold is crossed the bad is gone and when 173ish is achieved (relative to sea level) you are clear of bad and can collect your ethanol or whiskey. In short your “freezer Jack Daniels” is full of foreshots, heads and tails ... methanol and other bad alcohols that can possibly cause loss of vision and dementia in these concentrated amounts. At very best drinking this will leave you with the absolute WORST hangover you’ve ever had. Not trying to be a dick. But I’d want someone to let me know before I drank it if this was my experiment. Good luck and hopefully you find a way to distill out the bad. Heating it up in a put to 145 and holding it there a little while would help although it could be dangerous since it’s flammable. Good luck. 👍
Yes, and I can turn lead into Gold and pennies into Silver. I also have a cloudbusting machine that can make it rain.
its like synthetic diamonds (which I love) but I want to see a lab report saying its safe to consume
Much like how tobacco lobbies enough to disallow honest testing of vaping products, I doubt this will get a quality independent study for a long time.
scockery Well I think synthetic diamonds are vegan, so they must be healthy.
EtOH is carcinogenic, hepatotoxic and an endocrine disruptor. Safe to consume? You kidding, right? Maybe booze is not for you
I don't want technology in my bourbon. I want Kentucky sweat and tears.
Not even using uv lighting?
Someone tell him.
Stanton High I'm sure he's figured it out by now.
Someone tell him what? Tell me! I thought uv skunks alcohol?
He did say it was secret. Expect obscurity :)
It can be done in reverse and work very very well. The reason is takes say...10 years for a whiskey to become fulfilled is because not that much of the pure alcohol is in contact with the oak barrel. So you reverse the equation. Take some everclear...pour it into a mason jar with chunks of toasted oak. Cut it with water to your liking...in 10 days...you will have a jar of 10 year whiskey.
There is more to it than that to get the aging you want, you want it smooth so you need to get rid a lot of the aldehydes ester and fusel alcohols but not too much because they are important to the taste you do this with fugacity vacuum distillation enhanced with ultrasound in your base 40% alcohol I use Hennessy for cognac, Jameson for whiskey, but use what you like, then put in large clear glass jars and connect to pump system that occasionally cycles the alcohol to mix with a little bit of air, add barrel chip after charring French oak for cognac, English oak for whiskey, again use what you like then break the chips down with UV light and ultrasound water around the jars, finally strain out wood bottle drink later.
This may be a fancy new chemical process, but moonshine distillers have had processes that age liquor fast for years.
A similar process is to take about a 2 inch cube of wood, leave it in the bottles, and leave the bottles in the sun. Shake about once a week.
Another process is to drip the liquor down a willow pole, with each foot being equivalent of about half a year of aging. They say that you could age liquor 8 years in a minute with this method.
Still, a commercial product will help diversify the industry.
Technology excites me! Great vid, Reason.
How To Age Spirits | Barrel Char in a Jar Liquor Aging...search for it on youtube, using rum and gin.
This dude is both chill, funny, and hella genius. Jack of all trades.
I'm new at this "barrel aging" thingy. My spirit of choice for nosing & tasting is "Old Smuggler" and "Ardbeg 10". School me please, what would I gain by aging and how long to age? Thank you kind Sir . . . ;)
Alright, I got an idea. Get Bryan Davis and Don Livermore and put them in the steel cage octagon like they use in MMA. Force them to fight to the death over whether the majority of esterification is due to the oxidative ethanolysis in the porous structures of the wood or because of the UV degradation of the hemicellulose/lignins. Ring the bell and watch them duke it out.
I was waiting for this video to go towards the free market argument. Nice one guys.
My favorite part is when they taste tested the 2 and compared them side by side!
EXCELLENT VIDEO 👍 sticking it to the man.
I've always felt like there are a few skillsets in this world that are essentially super powers if the person truly knows what they're doing. Computer science, for example, has the potential to create worlds within worlds we've yet to even dream about. It can service us in our day to day lives, completely transforming the way we interact with this world. And yet at the same time the person who knows how to build these systems knows exactly how to destroy them. And so in this digital age an expert computer scientist with the will to do harm is dangerous.
Chemistry is very similar in that it's another way in which we create and destroy what's right in front of us. With the right knowledge and materials an expert chemist could theoretically make anything.
And on some level they're practically one in the same. This man reverse engineered the aging process. And though he won't say how he did it, I'm certain he studied the mechanisms in how liquor ages, studied how to recreate the function of these mechanisms, and studied how to raise the potency of this process.
Shit like this is deeply inspiring. Because when you sit back and observe from a distance, you come to realize that the vast VAST majority of EVERY thing in this world was created by a person. And before the hands gave birth to these creations, they existed only as ideas. When I look at someone like this, I see just another person quite literally warping reality with their vision and determination. And that's powerful shit.
If you can measure your end result, and have a process that you can repeat and slightly change. That's all you need, penetrating opposites to the very end and beginning
Any seeds from the American Chestnut tree available anywhere? There's an industry waiting to happen right there.
Amazing, Can I learn more in details about this technology? Thank you
As someone form Kentucky, I can assure you the bourbon industry will be fine regardless of quacks like this.
@Steve Sherman The Japanese use the same traditions as Scotland so fuck of with your hipster anti-logic.
@Stevospeedo japanese sources whiskey as well
@Stevospeedo how? The first comment said japanese makes better whiskey. I simply said they source whiskey, in which they do.
@Stevospeedo It took you two years to come up with this?
6:00 "we call it a heavily peated malt, and I have no idea what that means" .... ??? Really tho? What?
That doesn’t fare well when the owner doesn’t understand those words... but I guess I can only judge after I taste it
@@tacodias true that
It's been soaked in peat bog water in sack's of grain malted so it sprouts and ready after drying it out for fermentation process pretty silly for a alchemist lol
That's what we Scottish moonshiners do use bog water with old sack's left to soak for days till sprouts then dry it then put it in the mash all fineley ground down to a Powder try it your self if you want a decent single malt scotch whisky 🥃
It should be the goal of every industry to be regulated by the government. Regulation reduces competition which is an existential threat to the entrenched businesses.
What are those UV lights doing to the tannins though? Whiskey flavors arent just wood polymers. Theres a complex matrix of flavors, cant get it perfect every time
That's right. The charring of the wood inside the barrel when they first make it has a filtering/absorbent effect on any impurities in the alcohol while it ages in there. I wonder if he has taken this into account?
Love the booze peddling and anti-competitive licensing/regulation across America while some still think "drugs" are bad and people should be imprisoned and global wars fought.
@Stevospeedo before 2 am: moral. After 2 am: immoral.
Look up agorism and counter economics :)
Once I was very fortunate to taste 300hundred year old whisky. Natural whisky that had been hidden out of reach of Human Hands for around Three Centuries " Oh my Word" that Whisky was the best ever went down the so easy with the slight smokey taste in fact very mild. Then my whole belly warmed up so much I had this unique glow. Try knock up a batch of that to be frank I very much doubt No amount of Chemistry could mimic Three Centuries of fermentation.. Maybe a gentle movement in the barrels might help...
That is the way to learn a skill! This guy is awesome
pretty damn good idea blasting wood with light to make it flavor your spirits faster
Awesome informational educational video experience Y'alls God Bless Ya 🙏
I hope it won't have an overpowering hint of apple
*the American Chestnut is not extinct, just not many left. Largest American Chestnut forest left is in my town
You are a hero to craft distillers would wide.
Great video
I admire what he is doing and his accomplishments, but quite honestly the world doesn't need more whisky drinkers. I like that he is breaking barriers to competition. That's what Henry Ford did with the car industry.
I like the way this guy thinks. I've personally learned more from Wikipedia and open courseware than I did in my entire 6 years of college. Not convinced I got my money's worth out of my college.
Props for knowing your audience
this is so inspiring!
More power to you, JACK!
"You invented a time machine, and all you can think about is whiskey!?" - to paraphrase the Mike Teavee kid from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
placebo is up there with taste when it comes to marketing drinks, knowing its not really 20 years wont do much for many, its the art of it
If it's the same as the real thing, I don't see why not. But of course I wonder what the price correlation is between this and actual 20 year.
I wish I was more like this guy
So the Lysander Spooner of Liquor.
Awesome
Now if only I didn't have moderate to advanced Leaky Gut/IBS to actually buy and drink this mans products
RUclips taught me how to play chess so I believe he learned chemistry exactly how he described
When talks about abomination being peaty well am Scottish and that means years agot they would soak there malt rye or barley it's put in sack's in peat bog water cleanish water it's to sprout the grain for fermentation process I've done a few runs of whisky and multi grain 160 proof after temper down to 120 -60% alcohol love my own made none of this shit a slow run but better quality 💯👌
wow :D im little skeptical of this but i hope he can really succeed
The RUclipsr himself got pissed, he gave you the sickest bg.
You just can not get 20 year old whiskey in 6 days. What you get is 6 days old whiskey.
Whiskey is aged in dark wear houses.. wooden buildings exposed to the weather.. to rapidly age whiskey, use a 10 gallon oak charred barrel and put it in a room that gets 110’ for a few hours then 50’ for a few hours.. repeat 6 times a day.. after 2 months you have 10-15 year old taste
politics has always been used to create laws and regulations to stifle competition
Amazing!!!
How about to use this light technique, together with ultrasonic, all in space without gravity??? You can get the millenial whiskey!
Ksp music 😎
very cool
Update for you and similar way to ageing and "Oaking" spirits. Also buy the least expensive neutral spirits (Vodka or Ever Clear) and add wood chips, herbs and/or spices to it. I saw a few reviews and now just ordered a kit from: barrelcharwood.com/ you'll be glad you did. it takes less time and volume than small barrels. I think you'll be glad you checked this out. ;
I like what he is doing but I disagree with product naming. The words bourbon or scotch mean something specific and if you call your product that when it isn't, that is false advertising. "Theft through deception" including lying by omission would still be punishable under a libertarian legal framework.
If he can really mimic the taste of expensive scotch for a fraction of the cost, I don't think it will matter what he calls it. Call it Davis Brau and it'll sell.
username Yeah, but the resulting products of each process are almost identical. I agree that it should be obvious to consumers whether a drink is aged in a barrel or artificially, but to forbid his spirit from being called bourbon despite being identical in composition can be misleading to consumers. Should lab grown meats be forbidden from being sold as meat? Growth hormone that is extracted from genetically altered e. Coli instead of cadavers forbidden from being sold as Growth hormone? There are a million different ways to manufacture a toothbrush but the manufacturing process shouldn't change the fact that the end product is still a toothbrush.
Mr. Rotundus The following example is purely theoretical. If organic crops were virtually identical to "non-organic" crops. It would still be fraudulent to call "non-organic" crops organic regardless of how close to they are to actually organic crops. Similarly Scotch is called that because it comes from Scotland. It doesn't matter how similar your whisky is to Scotch, if it isn't from Scotland it can't be called Scotch.
Fuck, im an idiot, I used the example of "Bourbon" when I should have said whiskey. 100% agree with you there, slipped my mind that the definition of Bourbon is barrel-aged whiskey.
Yes, but the naming standards like Champagne, Scotch, etc are merely held onto these days to keep out competition. People love scotch, but if you make whiskey outside of Scotland in the same exact manner as Glenfiddich, and it tastes indistinguishable, you would have to label it "Single Malt Whiskey" instead of "Scotch". It is simply anti-competition, nothing more. It is no different than D.C. and NYC requiring cabbies to have an extremely expensive badge to operate a cab.
Our hero Bryan needs to unlock terroir. Certain prized Scotch malts aged in a dunnage warehouse next to ocean take on tasting notes of the ocean.
So throw some wood in some cheap alcohol and shine some UV lights on it for 6 days.
I can't help but think if there was actually something to this he would not hide behind all the art school crap.
This is one of things that I need to taste to believe 🤔
It's a nice idea but I couldn't imagine a suitable substitute for whisky
They don't have strict definitions for what makes a whiskey, they have strict definitions on what makes a bourbon and stuff like that.
Which makes sense I guess. Kinda the same regulations really dope cheeses have in Europe. So people can't lie about their product.
The real problem with the industry, I think, is the cost of entry. Also I'm of the mind where I think people should be able to distill if they want to.
You can legally grow weed in my state but you better be using that still for your lawnmower.
Learn about the dirty little secret of whiskey...do a search on youtube for "Common Man Cocktails". Rum and vodka, too. All the hype aside you are consuming flavored ethanol. Drink responsibly.
Amazing
So how do I do this at home??
Wooooow
WHAT !? hahahaha
He learned everything of youtube hahaha
Can we get an expert blind testing his stuff against whisky?
Hey reason, you should have thrown this guy a bone and highlighted where to buy his stuff.
This thing and this man are fucking incredible!
Neat.
KSP music makes me think he looks like Scott Manley. +rep to the autodidactism btw hella guy
That is the liberalism we need taught in our facilities of higher education, not that intersectionality bullshit! Power to this smart summabietch!
It’s videos like this that make me think by the time my kids go to college, if they even want to it will look completely different. Here’s a guy that gave himself a chemistry degree for free without the mandatory years of indoctrination classes that have nothing to do with what you want to learn.
What a Champ! Such dedication and ingenuity
Hope he moves to NH.
Electrician of the year!
I am speechless I think honest your best of best.
I understand the chemical engineering cause & effect
100% true
100% true
Not going lie to you
It's 100% true
Amazing
Link to Lost Spirits: www.lostspirits.net/home You're welcome.
Id like to see blind tests with specialists and watch the results.it may be hilarious.
Cool
SCIENCE!!!
Wow
Yeah, no, that's just bs, he just does that speed aging some brewers do on their kitchens, the light thing is just bs and he built a prop for it, he's combining his knowledge on brewing and prop making to sell what is basically a homemade whisky
Normally I’m a sucker for tradition but in the case of aging
Fuck that just streamline the shit out of that one
I hear music from Kerbal Space Program.
..... Is this dude me in 10 years?.... Couldnt find anyone to get me booze... So might as well make it myself.. The only 16 year old that was making a decent jar of shine.
I GOT A NUMBER! HOW YOU LIKE THEM APPLES?
I'm thirsty.