This Bourbon label caught our eye because it makes several big claims. It says:
- FINISHED WITH AN OXYGEN ENRICHED, ACCELERATED AGING PROCESS
- Patent Pending
- Pressure-Aged
- “we use rapid pressure changes and oxygen infusion to control the aging process”
- “age is no longer relevant and taste is all that matters.”
That’s a lot of envelope-pushing and innovation for one label. We happen to know a person who is both an experienced patent lawyer and an experienced whiskey distiller. So, in a future post, we hope to have him review the patent claims and assess whether this is closer to an innovation or a gimmick. The Bourbon is produced and bottled by Cleveland Whiskey, LLC of Cleveland, Ohio. The approval is here. Terressentia’s closely-related patent, also for aging spirits quickly, is described here.
I vote neither. Not really an innovation, since winemakers have been doing it for a while. You can age wine (or beer, really) on oak cubes with higher surface area to get oak taste in less time, and some wine makers use oxygen to “age” the wine.
So not really an innovation, but it appears to work?
Here’s an article on the practice in wine-making:
http://www.salon.com/2010/06/02/how_soil_affects_wine_ext2010/
This is interesting, not because it is a new method, but that they would try and patent what was done over 100 years ago in the production of Absinthe. The French called it “Oxygenee” and it was a method to make the raw alcohol that went into the Absinthe smoother. It was also faster so a better product could be brought to market and increase sales and profits. There is a company in the UK that uses the name Oxygenee. Yes, it was a pressurized method.
This may have been developed from the habits of distillers to allow the distilate to drop and splash. There is an old moonshiner trick of shaking a jug that was not full to make the raw whisky smoother.
I’m sure that the stuff is smooth, but patented?
I see two problems with the label: 1) the product is distilled in Indiana. I think Cleveland Whiskey is trying to get around this fact by adding a dash of new-make whiskey that they distil on site; 2) the text “colored and flavored with oak chips” must be stated clearly and not hidden in the text on the back.
I was just reading an article today about bourbon getting so popular that some “startup”-style distilleries are looking into these accelerated aging methods. If there’s one thing bourbon absolutely doesn’t need, it’s to get infected with that “Silicon Valley” mindset. I just published an intro to bourbon for newcomers not too long ago at http://jdbentley.com/journal/what-is-bourbon and this is exactly the kind of novelty I wanted to warn against. One of the best things about bourbon is the tradition, the patience, the process. I hope that doesn’t change just because some college kids have started to think it’s cooler than vodka.