A Portland-based company has claimed to help whiskey drinkers age their favorite tipple by three years in just 24 hours.
The new start-up company, Time and Oak, which raised over 130,000 dollars to help make the idea an entrepreneurial success story, has developed a product that allows drinkers to customise the flavour and improve the quality of cheaper whiskey by aging it, the Independent reported.
The laser-etched charred wooden sticks, also known as, Whiskey Elements, which are described as a "redesign" of the traditional whiskey barrel, enable a process described as "accelerated transpiration through capillary action."
Whiskey Elements, which also come in five flavours, oak, vanilla, maple, smoke and peat, reduce levels of methoxy-phenyl-oxime and acetaldehyde, making the alcohol akin to top-shelf aged whiskeys.
However, Gizmodo journalist Adam Clark Estes, who carried out a blind taste-test using the product, concluded that "throwing a burnt stick in a bottle of swill doesn't really work at all."
Founder of the company, Tony Peniche, said that they stand by their claims with a healthy assist from scientific data culled by multiple labs.
Peniche, who loves this product, added that they understand this review as well as are sorry for the results and hope they will give Whiskey Elements another try.