Discerning drinkers may soon be able to branch out after Japanese researchers said Tuesday they have invented a way of producing an alcoholic drink made from wood.<\/p>\n
The researchers at Japan’s Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute say the bark-based beverages have woody qualities similar to alcohol which is aged in wood barrels. They hope to have their “wood alcohol” on shelves within three years.<\/p>\n
The method involves pulverising wood into a creamy paste and then adding yeast and an enzyme to start the fermentation process.<\/p>\n
By avoiding using heat, researchers say they are able to preserve the specific flavour of each tree’s wood.<\/p>\n
So far, they have produced tipples from cedar, birch and cherry.<\/p>\n
Four kilogrammes (8.8-pounds) of cedar wood gave them 3.8 litres (eight pints) of liquid, with an alcohol content of around 15 percent, similar to that of Japan’s much-loved sake.<\/p>\n
Researchers experimented with both brewed and distilled versions of the new beverage, but “we think distilled alcohol appears better”, researcher Kengo Magara told AFP.<\/p>\n
Wood fermentation is already used to produce biofuel but the product contains toxins and is flavourless, making it far from a suitable cocktail component.<\/p>\n
“But our method can make it drinkable, and with a wood flavour, because it does not require high heat or sulphuric acid to decompose the wood,” Magara said.<\/p>\n
The institute has a broad mandate for scientific study related to Japan’s extensive woods and forests, but Magara acknowledged “wood alcohol” might not be the most obvious application for their research resources.<\/p>\n
“We thought it would be interesting to think that alcohol could be made from something around here like trees,” Magara said.<\/p>\n
“It’s a dream-inspired project.”<\/p>\n
The government institute aims to commercialise the venture with a private-sector partner and to have the lumber liquor on shelves within three years.<\/p>\n
“Japan has plenty of trees across the nation and we hope people can enjoy wood alcohols that are specialised from each region,” Magara said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Discerning drinkers may soon be able to branch out after Japanese researchers said Tuesday they have invented a way of producing an alcoholic drink made from wood. The researchers at Japan’s Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute say the bark-based beverages have woody qualities similar to alcohol which is aged in wood barrels. They hope […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[13638,6268,5817],"supplier":[14481],"class_list":["post-52573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-forest","tag-forestry","tag-research","supplier-forest-research-and-management-organization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52573"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=52573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}