Enabling Distillers To Make Smoother Spirits

“Smooth” is the word most used when describing the best spirits. Yet all spirits, even the most expensive and longest aged, have some harshness. Until now there has not been a means to completely eliminate that harsh sensation, typically described as a painful ’bite’ or ‘burn’. Viriato enables distilled spirits to fully eradicate this harshness to achieve their highest possible smoothness — COMPLETELY smooth, with no harsh bite and burn!

No tool, equipment or process that distillers use today can fully eradicate harshness, they can only reduce it. For centuries, and until today, the true cause of the harshness in spirits has remained a mystery. Voodoo Scientific made the discovery of what precisely causes the pain sensation in the mouth and throat when drinking spirits! We started with understanding the physiology of the pain sensation meeting with the Nobel Prize -winning expert in the specific nerve receptor in the oral cavity that creates this pain response, then understanding the attributes of compounds that would trigger the receptor, from there we performed scientific analysis of various spirits to identify the precise compounds they had in common that could trigger the pain receptor. This was the new scientific discovery — the pain response of the nerve, and its receptors triggered by specific compounds in any beverage alcohol.

We then studied the manufacturing processes of beverage alcohol to know where and how the compounds are formed. With these scientific and operational insights, we formulated our product Viriato to eliminate only the unwanted compounds that trigger the pain response, while also not affecting the compounds that create the spirit’s unique flavors — only the harsh bite is eliminated. Without the harshness overwhelming the experience, the other flavors are uncovered and now noticeable in a more enjoyable experience. 

Viriato is designed to work with all manufacturing equipment and processes, and all types of distilled alcoholic beverages, regardless of the mash used (e.g. whiskies, vodkas, tequilas, rums, gins, brandies, baijius, sojus, etc.).  

• Increase Profits from Higher Sales  Volume, Margin and Market Share. Consumers prefer smoother spirits, and those higher-premium spirits command far higher prices, by double or much more. Viriato makes products smoother, which can then command ultra-premium prices. Market share can also be greatly improved when one’s product is objectively smoother than competitors’. Viriato presents an exceptional opportunity for distillers to make both a meaningful improvement to their products, and also increase their sales and profitability.
• New Product Innovation. Without the distraction of harshness, the more subtle attributes that distillers artistically create in their spirits can be better perceived and enjoyed. New flavor profiles are now possible without the distracting harshness. Imagine even more subtle gins or complex flavored vodkas, or aged spirits that can now showcase all the flavors from the barrel, and when aging spirits becomes simply about flavor development without the need to ‘mellow’. Viriato may also help improve the health profile of the spirit.
• Potential Manufacturing Efficiencies.  With the harsh compounds already eliminated, distillers may be able to: capture more ethanol by cutting wider, use less energy by distilling to lower proofs, and increase throughput by requiring less filtration. Expensive barrel aging might be shorter if it is only needed to impart flavors and not having to also overcome harshness, which would save aging expenses and the costly losses to angels’ share, while enabling those barreled products to get to market faster. 

Viriato is our unique precision enzyme system which has been scientifically developed to target only the specific offending compoundstthat cause harshness while leaving all other compounds unaffected. The unique character of distillers’ products are now uncovered to be more enjoyably experienced without the distracting and painful bite and burn.  

Viriato is food-grade safe, and specifically designed to work on every type of spirit and work with whatever equipment is used by the distillery, making it seamless to adopt by anyone making anything spirits.

Distillers simply add Viriato during the fermentation stage as a processing aid since, simply put, it does not persist past distillation into the final product in the bottle. Alternatively, Viriato can be added during the polishing stage to smoothen products that were previously distilled, such as smoothing neutral grain spirits (aka NGS or GNS). 

No new equipment or process changes are required. There are no negative effects on manufacturing throughput or ethanol production, in fact, possibly some advantages. By adjusting the amount and/or duration of Viriato used, distillers can select the level of residual harshness in their spirit— including full elimination!

Independently Confirmed Effectiveness:

Lab Confirmation:  In rigorous independent lab-based tests under various conditions, Viriato has been proven effective on the target substrates while leaving other substrates unaffected.  

Distillery Confirmation:  Viriato has been proven effective in real-world trials at distillers with different types of spirits, and in differing manufacturing equipment and conditions. 

Sensory  Confirmation:  The experts at America’s longest-running international alcohol beverage evaluation firm, Beverage Testing Institute, performed a double-blind taste comparison of a spirit treated with Viriato vs. untreated, which confirmed the improvement as “drastically different.”  

Patents:  Our patent has been issued in the US, and is in the process of being obtained internationally.   Subsequent patents are in development for 2025.

Product  Availability:  Scale-up of manufacturing is underway, with initial availability of Viriato expected in early 2026.

Industry Recognition!

Honored by the spirits industry’s leading association, DISCUS, receiving an award as a  

Top Innovation in the Spirits Industry!