Robert Trujillo Didn't Think Metallica's Music Could Improve Whiskey Flavor

Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo is no scientist, but he wasn't convinced the band's music was powerful enough to improve the quality of their new Blackened whiskey. Sure enough, though, a top-secret formula made Trujillo a believer.

“I’m always one that has skepticism initially,” the 53-year-old told Rolling Stone in a new interview of the process behind the band's blend of Northern bourbons. “Then I study whatever it is and check it out. I have to go through a process. I was won over by this process maybe five or so months ago.” 

So what's the secret method? Dubbed by Trujillo as "the mash pit," a practice called "Black Noise" uses sound waves to speed up the whiskey's aging process. It's a patent-pending sonic enhancement process from Sweet Amber Distilling Co. "There’s a molecular structure that is somehow mixed in with the sound and vibration," he said.

As distiller Dave Pickerell, the Johnny Appleseed of American whiskey, explained it, the sound of music makes the barrels "feel happy," thus producing a more enhanced flavor. To describe the taste, he says the mixture is heavy on vanilla and caramel notes.

“Right near the surface is the wood caramel, so when you burn the barrel, you make char and right behind the char there’s what people call the red layer,” Pickerell continued. “That’s where the wood sugars get hot enough to caramelize but not hot enough to burn. There’s a lot of caramel right underneath the char, so the thing I’m going for is pulling some extra wood caramel out."

He added: "As the ligaments in the wood break down, they form six different compounds that all taste and smell like vanilla – one actually is vanilla. If you can cause the interaction between the whiskey and the wood to be enhanced by sonic vibration, you can cause the whiskey to pull extra goodies out of the wood.”

Blackened launches later this month at the suggested price of $43.

Photo: Getty Images


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