Empirical

With a dedication to new flavours, Empirical re-looks at the making of spirits and alcoholic drinks that capture a story through flavour, creating meaningful tastes from innovative technology.

Empirical’s spirits and canned drinks are made with a great deal of care and attention in their Copenhagen-based distillery, designed with custom-built machinery and a hybrid fermentation process. Once fermented, using a Japanese method to make kijo (the base for sake and miso), Empirical spirits are imbued with a dizzying array of ingredients to create their unique flavours: plum, pomelo, pine cone, toasted birch just to name few.

With flavour at the forefront, Empirical strive to explore the journey a taste can take us on, so they’ve taken the lead on this, pushing the boundaries of fermentation, brewing and distilling. The result is a range of core spirits – with names such as ‘Plum, I Suppose’ or ‘Ayuuk’ which is inspired by the Sierra Norte mountains in Mexico and can be mixed with ginger beer. A trio of cans explore a more fun and drinkable side to the brand, with ready-to-go fizzy alcoholic drinks made from an intriguing and refreshing combination of sour cherry, oolong tea and walnut wood.

Putting together this extraordinary experimentation into alcohol and flavour is Lars Williams and Mark Emil Hermansen, the former of Noma fame – Lars headed up The Nordic Food Lab, the experimental food research arm of Noma chef René Redzepi. Moving from food experimentation to alcohol, the idea of boundary-pushing and innovation led the ethos of Empirical.

Starting in 2017, Empirical set out to capture the emotion and memory associated with taste – how many of us map out our lives based on a series of formative taste sensations? Harnessing this importance, Hermansen and Williams doggedly chased flavours through rigorous trialling of more and more outlandish flavours (think roast chicken, oysters, even Doritos), alongside the innovative tweaking of fermentation and distillery processes. Mixing scientific tinkering with emotional experience allowed them to hone the flavour, with remarkable results. If you’d like to see the team in action, pop by the distillery in Copenhagen for an intimate behind the scenes glimpse into the production facility – with a few Empirical pours along the way.

Guided by a child-like curiosity, the art of distilling just got interesting with Empirical’s fascination for flavour and fermentation – meaning really rather good cocktails for us. Cheers!