You might remember the Natural Ice beer marketing campaign in which two fans attempted to make the first beer in space. But this is better. How about meteorite-infused wine?
Double-u, tee, eff. That's right, an Englishman by the name of Ian Hutcheon created Meteorito, the world's first wine aged with a meteorite.
Hutcheon recently released the extraterrestrial vino at his winery, Hutcheon's Tremonte Vineyard, in the Cachapoal Valley, which is roughly 62 miles southwest of Santiago, Chile.
The Cabernet Sauvignon is supposedly aged with a 3.5-inch diameter, 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite that came from the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. It crashed in Chile's Atacama Desert about 6,000 years ago.
According to Discovery News, Hutchinson acquired the space rock from a collector who didn't mind letting his prized possession stew in a barrel of grape juice for a whole year.
Following the primary fermentation of the wine, which takes 25 days, the meteorite was used during the malolactic fermentation phase, where the lactic acid bacteria Oenococcus oeni processes the substances that give pleasant aromas and flavors to the wine.
Then after 12 months, wine is blended with another barrel of Cabernet Sauvignon.
"The idea behind submerging it in wine was to give everybody the opportunity to touch something from space," Hutcheon told thedrinksbusiness.com. "When you drink this wine, you are drinking elements from the birth of the solar system."
He believes this will give the wine a livelier taste.
Hutcheon, also a huge fan of astronomy, opened his own observatory in 2007. It is called the Centro Astronômica Tagua Tagua, which also happens to be the only place where you can purchase the wine -- for now. He hopes to export it worldwide in the near future. About 10,000 liters of the wine have been made so far.
Next time you want take a trip to space, stop short of placing that tab of LSD on your tongue and pound a bottle of Meteorito instead.
Follow Short Order on Facebook and Twitter @Short_Order.
