
Lab-Made Whiskey, Lab-Made Wine - mhb
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2018/10/31/lab-made-whiskey-lab-made-wine
======
Animats
That's how most whiskey, by quantity, is made already.[1] Frank-Lin
Distillers' Products makes most of the low-end booze on the West Coast, and
some of the high-end. Ethanol, made in plants in the Midwest, comes in by the
tank car load by rail. Water comes from the water main and goes through a de-
ionizing plant. Water, ethanol, and flavoring are mixed and bottled.

They produce over a thousand brands, but there are only about a hundred
different recipes. Much of the value added is from the bottle and label. The
bottle factory is across the street. They make most kinds of booze, including
wine. The alcohol is "food grade industrial alcohol."[2]

They used to make Skyy vodka, until Skyy was acquired by Campari. Skyy was
just a marketing operation. Frank-Lin made the stuff under contract. You can
have your own brand of booze made by them as a service. Selling it is your
problem.

Brand differences in this industry are more about marketing than product.

[1] [https://www.frank-lin.com/production.html](https://www.frank-
lin.com/production.html) [2] [https://www.mgpingredients.com/other-
products/food-grade-ind...](https://www.mgpingredients.com/other-
products/food-grade-industrial-alcohol)

~~~
tptacek
Whiskey is not made by mixing flavorings with pure ethanol from a rail car.
It's (essentially) distilled beer. Most American whiskey is in fact distilled
in Kentucky.

Brand differences in the whiskey market are complicated and incestuous, but
they are not generally "more marketing than product".

~~~
kasey_junk
Is it true that most American whiskey is distilled in Kentucky?

Jim Beam is massive in scope in ways that are fairly incomprehensible. Add mpg
and micros & I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not true.

~~~
tptacek
Beam's biggest distillery (Booker Noe) is in Boston, KY.

~~~
kasey_junk
Ok? Not what I asked. Suntory has lots of distilleries. Honestly don’t know
what their production mix is.

Also doesn’t account for the trick question which is jack daniels. With that
one is their any chance your statement is true?

PS: this is the worst form of internet board pedantry. Thomas was talking
about a mis representation of the whiskey industry & instead of reputing his
point, which I agree with, I nerd sniped.

~~~
tptacek
Jack Daniels operates the largest still (by capacity) in the states, but then
the next like 15 big stills are all in Kentucky. Suntory has stills all over
the place, but if it's not Beam, it's probably not not American Beam-Suntory
whiskey.

(Weird fact: MGPI distillate is all over the market, but they're not even
close to the "biggest" still).

~~~
kasey_junk
So this is a legitimate nerd snipe I’m willing to concede. I think it is
closer than Thomas is saying here. Between Jack, Beam (and their international
owners) & adding MGP & the tiny crafts I’d bet more American whiskey is
_distilled_ outside of Kentucky than in.

Here is the bet. Given a methodology chosen by ‘harryh I’m in on $500 to
Blackstone Bicycle works against $500 to tptacek’s charity of choice.

~~~
harryh
I don't know what y'all are asking me to do here exactly?

It seems like someone needs to do some research to find a list of whiskey
distilleries and their annual output?

~~~
kasey_junk
It turns out that this was fairly hard data to compile. The easiest set of
data came from the Brown-Forman annual report. They list their distilleries
and their sales volume in clear terms. The rest of the distilleries were not
nearly as clear. Further Heaven Hill, a giant, is not public so don't need
disclose an annual report.

In any case it became really clear really early that this bet devolved into
'does Jack Daniels outsell the rest of the American Whiskey industry by
itself?'

Surprisingly, the answer is 'its actually close'. Here is an article that
summarizes similar results to what I found:
[https://www.thespiritsbusiness.com/2018/06/world-whiskey-
bra...](https://www.thespiritsbusiness.com/2018/06/world-whiskey-brand-
champions-2018-jameson/).

Dickel is the next biggest non-KY distillery that doesn't show up on this
list. They are effectively .1 additional 9l cases combined. The crafts are
.007.

In any case, I'll concede the bet. Let me know the charity.

~~~
kasey_junk
Also if its not obvious that seagrams entry is from Indiana. So this top 7
list actually shows _outside_ of KY on top, but the next N major distilleries
are all in KY.

~~~
kasey_junk
If anyone is watching this thread I paid the bet off to the Chicago Legal
Clinic

------
dylanz
If you’re in LA, I’d recommend visiting the Lost Spirits Distillery for their
tour. It’s 1/3 tasting, 1/3 science lesson, 1/3 Mr. Toads Wild Ride. A great
experience and their products are absolutely fantastic.

~~~
corysama
I'll shill the St. George distillery tour in the Bay Area. They make my
favorite liquor by far.

------
yarg
One thing that I always wonder about with these sorts of things is the extent
to which chirality comes into play.

Biological chemistry generally expresses strong chirality biases that do not
result from inorganic reactions - but the chirality plays a huge role in terms
of how organisms react to the chemicals.

If you can control the ratios of a chiral compound's enantiomers then it
really is as simple as they say - just a number of compounds thrown together
in appropriate ratios; but if not, it will be impossible to truly replicate
the results of the standard process.

~~~
dnautics
an interesting chirality story: The navy contracted John Frost [0] to make
rocket fuel biologically. The normal route to butanetriol (the precursor to
butanetrioltrinitrate, BTTN, the rocket fuel in sidewinder missiles) is via
reduction of malic acid. In order to do this one must consume large quantities
of boron, not terribly hard to obtain in the southwestern US, but the problem
is that the partially oxidized borate salts are a bitch to clean up and quite
toxic - I guess the Navy wanted a greener way to kill people. A biological
route would make the entire process cleaner, and less costly.

The big problem, is of course, that 1,2,4 butanetriol is very much chiral. You
might think that because it's gonna basically be burned who cares anyways, but
actually since BTTN is a solid rocket propellant, having a different crystal
symmetry can cause potentially undesired propellant effects in the bulk. We
can't have a rocket that doesn't work, or perhaps worse, occasionally blows
up, on the tarmac because of a teeny tiny difference in solid packing
geometries.

So Frost had to build two biochemical pathways to the compound. Which he did
(btw that is no small feat). The plan was to then combine them 1:1 before
subjecting the product to nitration.

Then, just for S&G, they took one enantiomer and nitrated it. Turns out the
nitration reaction is harsh enough to quantitatively racemize the compound.

[0]
[https://patents.google.com/patent/US7923226B2/en](https://patents.google.com/patent/US7923226B2/en)

In general, if I were doing biosynthesis for profit, I would probably not want
to make anything that didn't have a value-add due to the chiral selectivity.

------
maxander
So they’ve figured out how to turn water (and ethanol and some reagents) into
wine. Neat!

But I’ll believe that it’s _good_ only after hearing about how it fares in
blind taste tests.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
We already know that self proclaimed aficionados can’t tell the difference
between cheap and expensive wine.

It’ll be interesting to see if they can tell the difference between authentic
wine and lab-made.

I saw some vegan mince the other day that _looked_ indistinguishable from the
real thing.

~~~
rogerhoward
Unless I misunderstand you, that’s an absurd overstatement at best.

My wife is a somm as are many of our friends. I joined in on many of their
study sessions as each of them went through various phases of their
certifications.

Granted I’m lucky to tell a Pinot from a Chardonnay, but watching trained
Simms do blinds is impressive. It’s a mix of a very specific process - they
work from “the grid”, picking apart specific properties of a taste one bit st
a time - as well as incredible amount of practical knowledge that comes from
tasting an absurd amount.

It’s another thing to say that tastes don’t necessarily correlate with price -
any honest somm will tell you that. But anyone with a reasonable amount of
experience can tell a $5 bottle of Cupcake or a two buck Chuck and something
less industrial.

I know there’s a lot of excitement for lab made - it’ll rightly be seen as
just another technique eventually.

~~~
tjbiddle
I believe you're misunderstanding OP.

You're speaking of somms being able to distinguish flavor profiles - which of
course is a skill and I don't think anyone would deny that.

What OP said is that cheap vs. expensive wine is indistinguishable (At times).
There have been blind tastes tests with 2 Buck Chuck and expensive bottles,
and 2 Buck Chuck won.

[https://www.popsugar.com/food/Wine-World-Reels-2-Buck-
Chuck-...](https://www.popsugar.com/food/Wine-World-Reels-2-Buck-Chuck-Wins-
Award-404101)

~~~
plugger
The flavor profiles of cheap and expensive wines don't really correlate so
this argument is flawed. 2 Buck Chuck and other cheap bottles have flavor
profiles that tend to be sweeter and less acidic when compared to more
expensive bottles of wine, especially from the old world.

I think the correct statement is that most people actually prefer cheap
"industrial" wine as it's more approachable (sweet with low acid), especially
in youth, than many expensive bottles.

Even that article you linked to stated "There are those who feel that the
results should not be taken into account as the judges are not true, trained
wine professionals. The California State Fair competition is dismissed by some
critics as representing broad-based consumer tastes rather than the palates of
true wine connoisseurs."

Blinding the average Joe with cheap vs expensive wine is not a good barometer
for the quality of said wines from an well seasoned wine drinker's
perspective.

------
mauvehaus
Cleveland Whiskey[0] is a few steps less science-y than what they're doing in
TFA, but they're also pushing the limits of what some would consider
traditional whiskey. After having sampled a couple bottles, I'd say I'm on
board.

With products whose appeal is partly rooted in traditional craft, I realize
that gaining mass-market acceptance for highly non-traditional production
methods can be tough, but I'm one to let the results speak for themselves. It
turns out you can get pretty good results if you're willing to push the
envelope a bit.

[0] [https://clevelandwhiskey.com/](https://clevelandwhiskey.com/)

------
HillaryBriss
the Endless West website says "All our flavors are naturally derived, meaning
they come from plants and yeast."

when i read that i felt disappointed. for some reason i was hoping they gave
themselves the freedom to use the full range of natural and artificial food-
grade chemicals present in soft drinks, junk food and other consumer edibles.

~~~
adrianN
Which flavors are fully synthesized as opposed being produced by normal
creatures or genetically engineered E.coli or yeast?

~~~
HillaryBriss
I'm bad at chemistry. Really bad. I freely admit I don't have a good answer.

I was going to use Ethylvanillin as an example because it falls under the
heading of "artificial flavor", but as I reflect on your question further, I
gather that you're telling me that even things known as "artificial flavors"
could be acceptable ingredients to Endless West because artificial flavors
(like Ethylvanillin) ultimately are derived from chemicals that are derived
from plants.

~~~
adrianN
Reading up on the topic it seems like a lot more compounds than I thought are
chemically manufactured. I thought the popular way was implanting yeasts with
the genes for making the flavor. TIL.

------
Myrmornis
It would be cooler if they made drinks with the taste and psychological
consequences of alcoholic drinks but either without reduced brain function the
next day, or with an antidote to take the same night. Or maybe made it simple
and affordable to store and replace most of the blood in your body.

------
brennankreiman
Similar story as Four Roses rye whiskey, they make most of the rye whiskey in
the United States and it all gets relabeled and marked up by branding
marketing etc...

~~~
oflannabhra
This is false. I’ve been to Four Roses Distillery. Their operation doesn’t
have anywhere near the capacity you are talking about.

~~~
tptacek
It's false, but Four Roses has what was a few years ago the 7th largest
whiskey still in the country (by capacity), larger than MGPI's, which is in
fact the still that supplies most rye to bogus NDP "distilleries".

(MGPI rye is quite good, but you shouldn't pay a premium for it. They're
finally doing their own bottlings now, which is good news for consumers.)

~~~
oflannabhra
Yes, they are large. They just completed a $55 million expansion that will
double their capacity (obviously bourbon has a significant lag-time).

Four Roses is owned by Kirin Holdings, one of the top alcoholic beverage
conglomerates.

It was the case that the Four Roses brand was heavily tarnished for decades as
a blended whiskey, when owned by Seagrams.

