Inside Jameson's secretive experimental lab

• From Forbes.com

In a far-off corner of the Jameson whiskey facility in Midleton, Ireland, sits a long-dormant warehouse. It’s an old one -- the earliest evidence of the buildings’ existence can be found on a map from 1850 -- once used to store stacks of whiskey barrels three high. But lately, this warehouse has been the site of something else: A sort of innovation lab that the company calls its Micro-Distillery, where the staid whiskey brand experiments and creates new concoctions that may never see the light of day.

Here, distiller Karen Cotter (it should be noted; a woman in one of the world’s most male-dominated professions) plays around with different recipes and distillation techniques in the hopes of stumbling onto something great -- or at least different. Innovation comes slow to the spirit world. Aged spirits such as whiskey can take years to produce, and laws and regulations that strictly define what a “Scotch” or “bourbon” is leaves precious little wiggle room with which to try new things.

And, if a company has been around for a couple of hundred years, the chances are pretty good that their customers are looking forward to their familiarity, and buying into the idea that a bottle produced in 2016 tastes strikingly similar to one produced in 1916. These facts conspire to create a conundrum: How does a spirit brand innovate without alienating?

Go here for the full story.

---