With this California startup, no need for whiskey to age

The company claims its patent-pending system could save spirits industry

Washington: Silicon Valley is now taking aim at whiskey aged in barrels, with a start-up promising to mature spirits on a large scale in days instead of years with the same taste, color and aroma.

Bespoken Spirits, created by two partners in Menlo Park, California, said it had raised $2.6 million in seed funding to launch its accelerated spirits ageing process. The company claims that its patent-pending system could save the spirits industry more than $20 billion a year.

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“Our sustainable approach helps customers go from concept to bottle in just days,” said co-founder Stu Aaron. “We tailor the customer’s spirit to meet their specifications, using materials science and data analytics to save them years of time and as much as 70 percent of their costs. “This is accelerated maturation 2.0.”

According to a Bespoken statement, there are more than 9.1 million barrels of bourbon and other spirits ageing just in the state of Kentucky. Each year, nearly 20 million gallons of spirits are lost “to evaporation due to the wasteful, time-consuming and antiquated barrel ageing process.”

Whiskey usually takes at least three years to age, and the bulk of its flavour comes from the oak barrels used during the maturation process. “The traditional spirits production process is outdated, imprecise, unpredictable, unsustainable and inefficient,” said co-founder Martin Janousek.

But how does it taste? The reviewer at WhiskeyWash.com gave it middling scores.