Discerning drinkers might soon be able to branch out after Japanese researchers on Tuesday said they have invented a way of producing an alcoholic drink from wood.
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.
The method involves pulverizing wood into a creamy paste and then adding yeast and an enzyme to start the fermentation process.
By avoiding using heat, researchers say they are able to preserve the specific flavor of each tree’s wood.
So far, they have produced tipples from cedar, birch and cherry — 4kg of cedar wood gave them 3.8 liters of liquid, with an alcohol content of about 15 percent, similar to that of sake.
They experimented with both brewed and distilled versions of the beverage, but “we think distilled alcohol appears better,” researcher Kengo Magara said.
Wood fermentation is already used to produce biofuel, but the product contains toxins and is flavorless, making it far from a suitable cocktail component.
“But our method can make it drinkable and with a wood flavor, because it does not require high heat or sulfuric acid to decompose the wood,” Magara said.
The institute has a broad mandate for scientific study related to Japan’s extensive woods and forests, but Magara said that “wood alcohol” might not be the most obvious application for their research resources.
“We thought it would be interesting to think that alcohol could be made from something around here like trees,” Magara said. “It’s a dream-inspired project.”
The government institute aims to commercialize the venture with a private-sector partner.
“Japan has plenty of trees across the nation and we hope people can enjoy wood alcohols that are specialized from each region,” Magara said.
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles. National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta. Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.” Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis
The Venezuelan government on Monday said that it would close its embassies in Norway and Australia, and open new ones in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe in a restructuring of its foreign service, after weeks of growing tensions with the US. The closures are part of the “strategic reassignation of resources,” Venezueland President Nicolas Maduro’s government said in a statement, adding that consular services to Venezuelans in Norway and Australia would be provided by diplomatic missions, with details to be shared in the coming days. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it had received notice of the embassy closure, but no
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
RSS