Machine-Generated Art Lets Whiskey Fans Look Inside Their Favorite Tipple

As visitors to a legendary distillery in Scotland savor whiskey samples at the end of their tour, they’ll not only taste and whiff the spirits. They’ll see what’s inside of them, thanks to a wall-size projection of machine-generated digital art based on the drinks’ complex chemical signatures.

The art, called “Out of the Ether,” looks like a hypnotic puff of gold, white and gray smoke and clouds swirling and bubbling inside a giant glass marble. In fact, it’s a visualization of two rare whiskies based on their flavor and aroma profiles.

Whiskey makers routinely extract data on their offerings using gas chromatography and high-speed liquid chromatography, scientific techniques that allow for separating and analyzing compounds. But the spikes and troughs on the resulting graphs aren’t exactly easy for the average whiskey drinker to understand.

That’s where “Out of the Ether” comes in.

“We wanted to demystify what only an organic chemist or a nerd would have understood before,” Ewan Morgan, national luxury ambassador and head of whisky outreach at Diageo, the global liquor company behind the art, said in an interview. “At a glance you’ll be able to understand the complete character of the distillery and the whiskey.”

That distillery is Port Ellen on the rugged island of Islay off Scotland’s West Coast. Islay, known as “Whisky Island,” boasts more distilleries per capita than any other U.K. region and is known for whiskeys infused with a smoky flavor derived from peat.

A ‘Ghost’ Distillery Reborn

Port Ellen Distillery opened in 1825 and exported whiskey to North America as early as 1848. It closed down 40 years ago, one of a slew of Scottish “ghost” distilleries forced to shutter in the late 1970s and early 1980s as production of single malt Scotch whiskey outstripped demand.

Port Ellen reopened last week, remodeled and now owned by Diageo, the company behind brands including Johnnie Walker, Guinness, Smirnoff and Tanqueray that has invested $236 million to invigorate Scotch whiskey distilleries and tourism. Aimée Robinson, Port Ellen’s master blender, says the kinetic “Out of the Ether” art is part of the distillery’s long-term mission to chart the “atlas of smoke” in hopes of better understanding its nuances and mysteries.

To mark Port Ellen’s rebirth, the distillery is releasing two limited-edition whiskies, Port Ellen Gemini Original and Port Ellen Gemini Remnant, both of which come from 1978 European oak casks. One is a “remnant cask” that was saved by a Port Ellen employee when the distillery closed in 1983. He stored it at the Lagavulin Distillery where he went on to work.

The type of wood a cask is made of, the way it’s seasoned, and even its shape and size can greatly impact the flavor of whiskey. The remnant cask likely contained leftover liquid from some of Port Ellen’s most historic whiskies.

Over the past two years, Diageo used a custom algorithm it calls SmokeDNAi to monitor the parallel journeys of the Gemini whiskeys and better understand the chemical evolution of liquids that started out the same but matured in different casks.

“They’re both Port Ellen, but they’re very, very different whiskies,” Morgan said.

The algorithm processed thousands of data points from the two spirits, extracting and organizing information on their main 10 compounds. Among those are vanillin, which produces a vanilla aroma; phenol, which yields a medicinal smell; tannins responsible for astringency and bitterness; and translactone, which imparts a creamy coconut taste. Then, from that data, it created the visualization using parameters input by humans.

A graphic overlaying the art shows the percentile breakdown of the whiskeys’ primary compounds, and details how each one influences their character.

The SmokeDNAi algorithm, developed in collaboration with data and design studio Bose Collins, could help Port Ellen predict the outcome of blending whiskies and the best release dates for them. It could also produce more visual representations for liquor lovers from novices to connoisseurs—comparing and contrasting the smokiness of whiskies from different-aged barrels, such as an 8-year-old cask versus a 16-year-old one, for example.

“That will make it much easier for people to learn about these whiskeys,” Morgan said from Scotland, where he was visiting the newly opened Port Ellen Distillery. “They will know what they’re looking for and have a much better understanding and hopefully enjoy them a little bit more.”

Morgan, a third-generation whiskey maker, has enjoyed many a fine whiskey in his day. He said he appreciates too many things about the drink to enumerate, but among them are the way it brings people together.

“It’s a very social drink. It creates these wonderful life moments,” he said. Plus, “it’s evocative. It creates memories. It also brings you back to memories.”