People Keep Trying To Disrupt The Whiskey Industry

Earlier this month, we reported that a Los Angeles company, Rattleback Rye, is working on flash-aging its whiskey, turning a 20-year endeavor into a weeklong process. Also gaining notice is the Oak Bottle, which can infuse oak flavors into whiskey or wine in one to two days. It looks like what it's called: an oak bottle in which the liquid gets flash-aged, in a way, because the smaller surface area allows for a speedier process.

According to The Daily Beast, the concept of the Oak Bottle was based on founder Joe Paglione's grandfather's wine-making process."It's a unit of measure used to gauge how quickly a vessel can oak-infuse the liquid inside, weather it's an alcoholic liquid or whatever it is that you're infusing," Paglione said.

The Oak Bottles can be used for up to 50 aging cycles and come in two sizes: 750 milliliters and 355 milliliters, with eight flavors, from cherry and citrus to maple and smoke, and five different designs. Essentially, you would be infusing oak flavors into your liquor bottle by bottle in a miniature barrel.

Of course, not everybody is so keen on taking whiskey and bourbon production into the future. As we reported back in 2014, Pappy Van Winkle HQ in Kentucky proudly displays a sign that reads "No scientists allowed in this distillery."

And Bryan Davis, founder of Lost Spirits Distillery, the company that created the Thea One Reactor, which speed-ages Rattelback Rye, told The Daily Beast that products like Oak Bottle do not go as far as aging the liquor properly.

"Some of them have produced parts of the profile of an actual aged product, but none of them have ever produced the whole thing," Davis said.