Column: Will Artificially-Aged ‘Whiskeys’ Ever Catch On? It’s Happening Already
Column: Will Artificially-Aged ‘Whiskeys’ Ever Catch On? It’s Happening Already
A few years ago, I received one of the first bottles of Glyph sent over to the UK, where I live. Glyph is a ‘whiskey’ produced by San Francisco company Endless West. The company foregoes the typical costly efforts of fermentation, distillation, and maturation. Instead, it independently sources the molecular compounds typically found in good whiskey. By blending them together, the resulting drink theoretically resembles an aged whiskey in smell and taste.
Tasting the Glyph in the excellent whiskey bar Milroy’s of Soho, both myself and my whisky industry pal (Billy Abbott from The Whisky Exchange) reached a similar conclusion. While the theory behind this product is fascinating, in practice it doesn’t taste very good. However, Glyph represents a very interesting early attempt to circumvent the tried and tr