A Japanese distillery is sending whiskey to the ISS for science

When it comes to creating new and exciting ways to age whiskey, no company does it better than the Japanese distillery, Suntory. After taking home the impressive distinction of producing the world’s best whiskies, this forward-thinking group decided not to rest on its laurels, and has recently announced plans to send five bottles of its darling nectar to age in space. In a press announcement released by Suntory, operation Elucidating the Mechanism Mellowing Alcohol Beverage — a fancy way of saying “finding out what zero-gravity does to the flavor of booze” — begins on August 16 when a box of spirits will travel to the International Space Station. Traveling aboard the HTV5 transfer vehicle, the shipment will launch at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Tanegashima Space Center and will be placed in the ISS’ Japanese Experiment Module (aka Kibo). For the sake of getting a true barometer on what zero-gravity does to its products, Suntory intends to send samples of a recently distilled whiskey as well as a 21-year-old single malt.