Spirits are distilled alcoholic drinks that typically contain 40% alcohol by volume (ABV) or 80 “proof”. Until the Pandemic, I avoided spirits—preferring to imbibe less intoxicating beers and wines. However, during the Quarantine, I made it my mission to drink up a stock of tequila that my Mexican exchange student’s father Pepe sent me when his daughter told him about the terrible cold in Minnesota.
Down the hatch went Don Julio and the like over some months…and yet the quarantine dragged on. Tiring of tequila I pivoted to bourbon, starting with top-shelf Woodford Reserve and settling after serial pairwise testing on bottom-shelf Evan Williams. Why pay more when you cannot discern a difference?
Last week my research on spirits expanded to rye whiskey purchased after a tour of the Chattanooga Whiskey Experimental Distillery. See my guide Sam pictured with a measurement guide for a key variable—the degree of charring in the storage barrels.
The mash bill for my bottle is malted rye, yellow corn, caramel malted rye (providing a smoother taste) and chocolate malted rye (not sure what that is, but it sounds tasty).
It seems to me that multifactor design of experiments would be an ideal tool for contending with the many process, mixture and categorical inputs to the optimization of whiskey. Once upon a time I toured Dewars Aberfeldy distillery in central Scotland. It concluded with my first taste of whiskey—shockingly strong. However, what interested me most was a simulator that allowed visitors to vary inputs and see how the output rated for taste. Unfortunately, I only had time to do one factor at a time (OFAT) testing and desperate stabs at changing multiple inputs.
If the spirit moves you (pun intended), please contact me for help designing your experiments and tasting the results.