Development of a predictive computational model of whisky flavour compound extraction from wood as a function of environmental conditions

奇数社会精神是一个小批量的蒸馏在温哥华BC专门生产优质威士忌，杜松子酒，和酒与强烈的地方感。他们在现场生产所有的产品，并通过他们的品酒室和一些不列颠哥伦比亚省的酒类零售商销售。这笔拨款支持酿酒厂和温莎大学之间的新合作伙伴关系，使用现代计算方法来更好地确定各种环境和成熟条件对酒桶陈酿的影响。威士忌的成熟是一个复杂的过程，在这个过程中，橡木桶中复杂的风味化合物被酒精慢慢地提取到烈酒中。更好地了解这一过程是如何工作的，将有助于酿酒厂更好地确定所使用的木桶的类型，并将提高选择用于长期陈酿烈酒的木桶类型的信心。这项工作的核心是学术和工业伙伴之间的密切合作。该公司的蒸馏师（包括赫瑞瓦特大学（Heriot-Watt University）的化学博士和理学硕士，赫瑞瓦特大学是目前世界领先的烈酒研究机构）将提供实验数据，以训练和验证高德博士正在开发的计算模型。该项目有望提供一种有用的预测工具，为酿酒师提供额外的信心，使他们相信他们的原始烈酒会以预期的方式陈酿，从而降低制备更老、更复杂的烈酒所涉及的风险。这种确定性将提供更好的产品，并使公司能够比预期更快地扩大员工规模。

Odd Society Spirits is a small batch distiller in Vancouver BC specializing in the production of premium whiskies, gins, and liquors with a strong sense of place. They make all of their product on site and sell both through their tasting room and through a number of BC alcohol retailers. This grant supports a new partnership between the Distillery and the University of Windsor to use modern computational methods to better determine what impact various environmental and maturation conditions will have on the ageing of a spirit in a barrel. Whisky maturation is a complex process through which the complex flavour compounds in the oak are slowly extracted into the spirit by the alcohol. Better understanding how this process works will help the distillery better determine the type of barrel to be used and will provide improved confidence in selecting the types of barrels to be used for spirits that will be aged for a long time. Central to this work is the close collaboration between the academic and industrial partners. The distillers at the company (including a PhD in chemistry and an MSc from Heriot-Watt University, the world's current leading institution for spirits research) will provide experimental data to train and validate the computational model being developed by Dr. Gauld. This project is expected to provide a useful predictive tool that will provide distillers with additional confidence that their raw spirit will age in the expected fashion decreasing the risk involved in preparing older, more complicated spirits. This certainty will provide a better product and allow the company to expand their staff faster than otherwise expected.