Sitting, or
rather collapsing after a day of errands and puppies. After starting the day
with puppies, then running errands, I now end the day with puppies. Mia’s Five
are still growing and would make the Energizer Bunny tired. And they’re just
over the 3 month mark. To top it off, Chas has drill this weekend, so we get to
babysit Syrus, the daddy also. Talk about a zoo. To add to the 7 dogs, we have
George the cat. Not sure about the cat, he’s either hiding or snuck out when I
wasn’t looking, but the dogs, Mama Mia, Daddy Syrus and the 5 monsters, errr I
mean cute puppies, have finally collapsed. Mama Mia of course chose to fall
asleep on my feet.
So as I try to
finally relax in the brief quiet that has descended upon the house I’m reading
an odd-ball article about aging whiskey in space. Ardbeg Distillery on the Isle
of Islay in Scotland sent a vial of un-matured malt whiskey to the
International Space Station back in 2011. They kept a second, identical vial of
un-matured malt whiskey on Earth for comparison. Their idea was to investigate
how micro-gravity, or near zero gravity would affect the behavior of Terpenes.
What kind of word is that.
They say that
Terpenes are the building blocks of flavor for many foods, wines and whiskey
spirits. Anyway, the experts said there was a difference to whiskey aged in space
versus on Earth. Dr Bill Lumsden, Ardbeg’s director of distilling and whiskey
creation stated, “When I nosed and tasted the space sample, it became clear
that much more of Ardbeg’s smoky, phenolic character shone through and revealed
a different set of smoky flavors which I have not encountered here on Earth
before.”
Ardbeg was
invited to take part in the space experiment in 2011 by Texas based space
research company called NanoRacks. The vial was launched by Soyuz rocket from
Baikonur in Kazakhstan and spent nearly 3 years in space.
NanoRacks CEO
Jeffrey Manber said, “It’s hard to find companies willing to be pioneers. To
have a partner like Ardbeg that is willing to make this sort of commitment
augurs well for the future of commercial space research into flavorings and
what it changes for consumer products in general.”
Pioneer company?
Future research? Sounds like a distillery in space in the near future. Now if
you expect to buy this Scotch Whiskey at your local liquor store be careful.
They claim it costs about $10,000 to send 1 pound of material into space. They
didn’t say how much to bring it back, but this could be some very expensive
Scotch. On the bright side, Suntory, a whiskey maker from Japan has its own
plans to send whiskey into space.
They do say that competition can keep the price down. My question is,
what do you call it? I mean, there’s Scotch Whiskey, and Irish Whiskey and
Tennessee Whiskey and Canadian Whiskey….. Get my point? We need a new name for
the new space juice to be. It should be something spacey or retro Science
Fiction to keep the image going.
Something else to ponder, a good name for space whiskey. They should
have a name competition or contest to come up with suggestions.
If you just like green products, check out the link below. You’ll find
something for the headache I probably helped create.
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