Sip Without the Burn: This Startup Is Engineering Smoother Spirits
▼ Summary
– Professional spirits reviewers avoid the term “smooth,” but consumers frequently use it to describe spirits that don’t cause discomfort when drinking.
– The distilling industry employs various methods, from aging to chemical additives, to reduce alcohol’s burning sensation but cannot eliminate it completely.
– Founders Joana Montenegro and Martin Enriquez investigated why alcohol burns and discovered no prior research had identified the specific compounds causing the pain.
– They identified the TRPA1 receptor as responsible for the burning sensation, which cannot be blocked due to its reversible bonding property.
– The TRPA1 receptor continuously alerts the body to alcohol’s irritant nature, explaining why the burn persists with each sip.
For those who enjoy a fine drink, the term “smooth” often tops the wish list, yet it remains one of the most debated descriptors among spirit professionals. While connoisseurs may dismiss the word as vague, everyday drinkers consistently seek out beverages that go down easily without that familiar fiery kick. Achieving this quality has long driven distillers to experiment with everything from extended barrel aging to undisclosed additives, yet the fundamental burning sensation has stubbornly persisted, until now.
The founders of Voodoo Scientific, Joana Montenegro and Martin Enriquez, decided to tackle this challenge head-on. Rather than accepting the burn as inevitable, they asked a simple but overlooked question: what actually causes alcohol to sting the mouth and throat? Common belief points to ethanol as the culprit, but their curiosity led them down a different path. During the Covid-19 lockdown, the couple, drawing on Enriquez’s background in telecom and Montenegro’s expertise as a food scientist, began reviewing scientific literature. They were surprised to find that no one had clearly identified which compounds trigger the painful sensation in spirits like whiskey.
Montenegro explained that they shifted their focus to locating the specific receptor in the mouth responsible for the discomfort. They reached out to David Julius, a physiology expert at UCSF, arranging a socially-distanced meeting at a Starbucks. Initially puzzled by their interest, Julius eventually guided them in identifying the receptor known as TRPA1, which plays a key role in the body’s pain response.
In food science, masking an undesirable sensation often involves blocking a receptor with another compound. However, this approach failed with TRPA1. Montenegro described its unusual behavior: “This receptor has a very unique property called reversible bonding. It bonds to a molecule, delivers a jolt of sensation, releases it, and is ready to bond again.” This cycle explains why each sip of a spirit can produce a fresh wave of burning, making it nearly impossible to suppress through conventional means.
The discovery underscores why alcohol’s burn is so persistent, it’s the body’s built-in alert system. Rather than blocking the receptor, the team is now exploring new methods to engineer spirits that minimize activation of TRPA1, offering the prospect of a genuinely smoother drinking experience without altering flavor or relying on additives.
(Source: Wired)