Grant: Idea to Innovation

Matured spirits, such as Canadian whisky, are produced by allowing freshly distilled liquor (new-make) to mature inside of oak barrels. The maturation process is comprised of a series of chemical events, including microextraction from and microfiltration by the wooden barrel, oxidation, and chemical reactions between the various molecular components of the solution. This aging process - by its very nature - takes time: for example, Canadian whisky must be held in a barrel for at least three years. This, however, is a long time to wait for a drink. For Canadian microdistillers, the problems run even deeper than just thirst: barrels of long-aging spirits take up valuable space, and the barrels themselves can be difficult and expensive to acquire; the longer the spirit sits in a barrel, the more product is lost as "angel's share"; and finally there is no return on investment for the entire time the spirit is maturing, and no guarantee that the final product will even be something of high quality after waiting all that time. For these reasons, most Canadian craft distilleries steer clear of matured spirits and instead opt to make vodka and gin, limiting potential products and revenue.At its core, spirit maturation is a complex chemical kinetics problem, with many processes happening simultaneously at different rates (and some crucial ones happening at very slow rates). We are developing a fast maturation method called "inverse barreling", which is rooted in chemical fundamentals and informed by systematic scientific experimentation. This technique - and the novel materials to enact it - will enable craft distillers to mature spirits faster and to explore novel types of spirits that are not possible to make using traditional methods, rendering their Canadian businesses both more efficient and more innovative. In this proposal, we further innovate our "inverse barreling" process by incorporating heterogenous catalysts to accelerate the chemical transformation of the spirit. We also expand the capacity of our "inverse barreling" methods to an industrial scale.