The Lowdown: Mystic Galactic

MYSTIC GALACTIC BOURBON

Mystic Farm & Distillery in Durham, North Carolina has an audacious plan to create one of the world’s most exclusive batches of bourbon by sending five barrels of its finest spirits into space to age for a year.

This endeavor by the brand hopes to create a bourbon that’s truly out of this world.

The release is limited to 1,500 bottles, and just 1,000 bottles of Mystic Galactic bourbon will be available for pre-sale at $75,000 each through an NFT (Non-Fungible Token) drop.

The 10-year-old company is currently working with a variety of launch vendors, including SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, to send the 3-year-old bourbon into low Earth orbit, reports Johnathan Blitz, who co-owns Mystic Farm & Distillery with his wife, Marla Tuchinsky, and Mike and Katie Sinclair.

The barrels used to store the bourbon will be recoopered by West Virginia Great Barrel Company to install baffles so that sloshing bourbon doesn’t destabilize the spacecraft and add corrosion-resistant titanium hoops. The barrels will also be pressure-tested to three times normal pressure in preparation for their sojourn into space.

“The barrels will be inside an orbiter with a heat shield and parachute suitable for re-entry and will orbit the Earth once every 100 minutes or so,” says Blitz. “It will slowly spin on its axis, which will spin the bourbon out into the barrel.”

A year in space will expose the orbiter and its contents to some unique extremes, including dramatic temperature fluctuations. Blitz isn’t overly concerned that the quality of the bourbon will suffer, though he admits there’s no way to know with certainty. “I believe only one experiment has been done aging spirits in space, but that was putting high phenol whiskey in a plastic vial with a wood chip, and that’s just not real,” Blitz says. “We’re using quality Appalachian oak barrels that already have some age on them.”

Upon its return to Earth, the bourbon will be placed in 900-gram European glass bottles, which are laser-etched with metal insets. “The bottles come with a tamper-evident composite nosecone over the top, which requires a special tool to remove,” Blitz adds. “Once you remove the top part of the fairing, you will never be able to reseal it again.”

An NFT will be provided as proof of ownership, and each purchaser will receive a fragment of one of the space-faring barrels and a 50-ml sample so they can taste the bourbon without opening their bottles.

“Mystic Galactic represents a milestone beyond just an elite luxury product because in every generation there is that object of desire, whether it’s a limited-edition Ferrari or a high-end watch,” Blitz observes. “I also believe Mystic Galactic represents the reality of manufacturing in space. Since I was a kid in the 1980s, I’ve been hearing about how we’re going to manufacture in space, and it has never come to pass. I believe Mystic Galactic speaks to the maturity of commercial space endeavors to be able to create a commercial product, even if it’s not a mass market product.”

Blitz hopes to send the five barrels into space in January 2024 and will return them a year later. Purchasers will receive an app that will provide content related to the engineering and the mission, and there will be a live video feed as the barrels are sealed and prepared for space. “There will also be a launch party exclusive to those holding NFTs, as well as a re-entry celebration a year later,” Blitz says. “Purchasers will be able to pick up their bottles at Mystic Farms & Distillery or another designated location. As you can imagine, this isn’t something we want to ship through the mail.”

– Don Vaughan