Distilling Liquor With Machine Learning And Big Data

According to a Nielsen report, brick-and-mortar alcohol dollar sales were up 21% in April 2020 compared to the same period a year ago. Online alcohol sales skyrocketed by 234% over the same period in 2019. However, despite the increase, global sales are decreasing due to the shutdowns in restaurants, bars, live events and travel.

Next Century Spirits is a liquor technology startup with $9.6 M in funding. The company uses big data and machine learning to create and filter bespoke distilled spirits. Matthew Bronfman, who is part of the Bronfman family that owns the Seagram's company, is an investor in Next Century Spirits and chairs its board.

Next Century Spirits augments traditional distilling techniques with a filtering and finishing technology that can add specific qualities to spirits in less than a day.

"We use automation and predictive analytics to reduce the chaos, control flavor profiles, and scale precision quality control in the finishing process," said Nick Scarff, Master Blender and vice president of business development at Next Century Spirits. "The systems we use are fully programmable, designed to optimize certain temperatures, alcohol concentrations, and other conditions that form and maintain desired flavors."

Scarff says the company uses sensors, gas chromatography, and materials such as copper to reduce risk and predict outcomes based upon chemical profiles they detect. And the technology reduces the filtration process into hours versus days.

"We can remove impurities or compounds like isopropanol, methanol, butyric acid, and certain sulfur-based chemicals using highly specialized, patented filtering, targeting even microscopic amounts," added Scarff. "Even just a few parts per million of naturally occurring chemicals will completely change the aroma and flavor of the distillate."

Scarff notes that the ultimate result is to accentuate the pleasant flavors, like fruity, aromatic esters, or rich aldehydes, which are traditionally derived from barrel aging.

"Instead, all of this process takes place in a closed system to maintain control and minimize product loss. This is especially important when considering how much spirit is otherwise lost in the angel's share if it were to continue additional years in a cask," said Scarff.

"I have been in the spirits industry for more than a decade. I have never seen a filtration system on the market doing this type of data gathering and analysis of quality and customization," said Scarff. "We are not trying to replace barrel aging. We are augmenting it and accentuating the nuanced changes that happen in the barrel."

Scarff says that instead of hoping what comes out of the barrel will be acceptable, the technology helps distillers to customize and hit the flavor profiles that the brand wants to match. The ultimate result, he says, is an increase in options and flavors to match consumer taste and demand.

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