TOKYO: Japanese whisky will be sent into space next month to test how time in a zero-gravity environment affects its flavour, one of the country’s biggest drinks makers said on Friday. Suntory Holdings will send a total of six samples of its whiskies and other alcoholic beverages to the ISS, where they will be kept for at least a year to study the effect zero gravity has on the ageing process.
Later this month, one of Japan’s best known whisky distillery, Suntory, intends to mature some of its finest whiskey in the zero gravity of space. When the Kounotori 5 transfer vehicle blasts off from Tanegashima Space Center on the 16 August to rendezvous with the International Space Station, it will be carrying five of Suntory’s finest drams.
Suntory calls it an experiment and wants to learn more about the ageing process within whisky and the effects of microgravity. They believe the environment on the ISS will produce a “mellower” whisky because of the absolute stillness of the ISS and very little temperature fluctuations.
One batch of the space whisky will spend 12 months orbiting the earth while a second batch would be there for a few years.
This is not the first time that whisky has been sent to the ISS for the purpose of science. In 2011 samples of Ardbeg scotch whisky were sent as part of an experiment to see how the spirits’ maturation process is affected by the near zero gravity of space.
