An on-line spirits service provider is commemorating the previous and way forward for NASA missions to the moon with limited scotch whisky offerings for 2022.
Scotland-based The Whisky Barrel is marking the brand new 12 months with the discharge of the primary bottling of its Artemis whisky sequence commemorating the upcoming first flight of NASA’s new lunar program. The bottler additionally has an Apollo sequence, together with a single barrel whisky bottled for the final mission to land astronauts on the moon 50 years in the past.
“When the crew of Apollo 17 returned to Earth in December 1972, the program came to an end amid waning enthusiasm and finances. Little did anybody realize that it would be 50 years before a new program to return humans even close to our beautiful moon,” The Whisky Barrel wrote on its company blog.
Related: How NASA’s Artemis moon landing with astronauts works
Originally scheduled for 2017 however delayed by a sequence of technical and funds setbacks, NASA’s Artemis 1 mission is now focused to launch an uncrewed Orion spacecraft on a three-week mission across the moon within the spring of 2022. The flight will mark the primary built-in check of the capsule and the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on a journey that may loop across the moon at a distance farther into space than any earlier crew-rated spacecraft has traveled earlier than.
“To rejoice the (nonetheless delayed) launch of Artemis 1, we’re delighted to carry to you an unbelievable single cask from Islay to mark our return to the moon,” the bottler wrote on its web site. “As planning goes, this superb whisky has not fallen to quite the same level of delay [as the mission] so in full anticipation, and so you can have it in your hand when the day of launch arrives, The Whisky Barrel presents Bunnahabhain Artemis First Launch Edition.”
Matured in a single hogshead cask and distilled in 1990 at Bunnahabhain Distillery on the Isle of Islay, the Artemis First Launch Edition contains a blueprint-inspired label with line drawings of the Orion spacecraft and SLS rocket.
“We think enjoying this when Artemis 1 launches next year will provide the moment for this,” wrote The Whisky Barrel, including tasting notes of “orbital barley sugars, ginger eclipse, lemon juice pulsars, hot chili rocket fuel, honey starburst, solar salt and pepper.”
Limited to 285 bottles, Artemis First Launch Edition retails for $245.43 and may be shipped worldwide.
If the previous is extra to your style, The Whisky Barrel additionally has an unique single cask whisky commemorating the Apollo 17 mission, which landed on the moon 50 years in the past as of December 2022.
“On the thirteenth December 1972, astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt carried out the last of the lunar surface explorations. This could be the final human footsteps not solely of the Apollo missions however of anyone. On this identical day again on planet Earth, this very whisky from Invergordon distillery was being stuffed into its cask,” The Whisky Barrel wrote.
Named after Cernan’s call back to Earth as he and Schmitt left the moon, “We’re On Our Way, Houston!” Blended Grain Scotch Whisky features a photo of Apollo 17’s Saturn V rocket on the launch pad on its label. Tasting notes include a “deep space orange zest on a burst of nutmeg starlight orbiting spearmint asteroids, nebula of drive fruits, meteoroid bathe of cinnamon, leather-based and oak observing a delicate dry end.”
Released in October and restricted to solely 109 bottles, the Apollo 17 “We’re On Our Way, Houston!” edition sells for $363.03.
In addition to Apollo 17, The Whisky Barrel’s “black label” Apollo series also includes spirits bottled for Apollo 8, Apollo 9, Apollo 10, Apollo 11, Apollo 14 and Apollo 15. Apollo 12 and Apollo 16 editions are still to come.
The Whisky Barrel also sells an exclusive trilogy of Scotch whisky celebrating “perilous, thrilling and easily hilarious moments” from three Apollo missions with labels that includes the artwork of illustrator Jamie Coe. The trio commemorates the strike of lightning in the course of the launch of Apollo 12, the primary lunar golf shot on Apollo 14 and the invention of the Genesis rock on Apollo 15.
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