Voodoo Scientific

Our Product: Viriato

What It Does

“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 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-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 those compounds that trigger the pain response while leaving the spirit’s flavors unaffected — only the harsh bite is eliminated. 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.).

WhY spirits BRANDS care

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’.
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.

What it is

Viriato is our unique precision enzyme system which has been scientifically developed to target only the specific offending compounds without affecting the flavors of the product. Distillers keep their spirit’s same unique character, now smoother.

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.

how to use it

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. 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 used, distillers can select the level of residual harshness in their spirit— including fully eliminating!

What is the status

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 all 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.”

Patent-Pending: Patents are filed in the US, and in the process of being obtained internationally.

Product Availability: Scale-up for manufacturing is underway, with initial availability of Viriato expected in latter 2025.

Industry Recognition!

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

Top Innovation in the Spirits Industry!

PREVIEW — IN DEVELOPMENT

Voodoo Scientific is collaborating with the spirits industry’s leading sensory science firm to develop a Harshness Scale that would provide an objective numerical rating of spirits products‘ level of harshness. Inspired by the Scoville Scale that rates the spiciness of peppers, this will provide consumers with a trusted, independent means to objectively compare the harshness of spirits products. This independent numeric rating, for example where one product may be rated a 78 and another 88, consumers will be able to confidently know which products are genuinely the smoothest.

Latest News

ARTICLE by Voodoo’s CSO: The discovery & innovation

Artisan Spirit Magazine

https://www.artisanspiritmag.com/spirit-mag-issues/fall-2023

(page 113: Innovating with Enzymes)

article: The Science of Smooth

SynBio Beta

https://www.synbiobeta.com/read/the-science-of-smooth-voodoo-and-ginkgos-gentle-spirits-revolution

ARTICLE: VOODOO'S ENZYMATIC KEY TO UNLOCK SMOOTHER SPIRITS

AgFunder News

https://agfundernews.com/voodoo-scientific-emerges-from-stealth-with-enzymatic-key-to-unlock-smoother-spirits

(Photo: Voodoo's CEO & CSO)

GINKGO BIOWORKS SELECTED By VOODOO aS SCIENTIFIC PARTNER

PR Newswire

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/voodoo-scientific-leverages-ginkgo-enzyme-services-to-develop-enzymatic-processing-aid-to-eliminate-the-harsh-bite-from-distilled-alcoholic-beverages-301865080.html

spirits industry innovation award

GINKGO BIOWORKS SELECTED By VOODOO aS SCIENTIFIC PARTNER

spirits industry innovation award

DISCUS' Conference 2023

Voodoo Scientific has been honored with an award by the spirits industry’s premier association, DISCUS, for being a

Top Spirits Industry Innovation!

(Photo: Chris Swonger, DISCUS' CEO, with Voodoo's Martin & Joana)

About Us

Martin Duncan Enriquez

Martin is enjoying his career as an executive and innovator in multiple industries; with global leaders such as Visa and Vodafone, as well as growing start-ups as CEO/CXO, from high-tech to bio-tech. Martin has worked in over 20 countries and his responsibilities have exceeded 1000s of people, and created over $2 billion in new revenue and $5 billion in new company value; for example, starting & building Vodafone's most successful company in both profitability and growth. Beyond career, Martin holds a world record for weight lifting endurance in the Good-Morning lift.

Martin has M.B.A. & M.Ed. degrees from Stanford University.

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Joana Montenegro PhD

Martin Duncan Enriquez

Joana is a respected food & beverage industry executive and innovator whose inventions and trade secrets include over $5B in new revenue, and over $100 million in cost savings. Her innovation skill set spans ‘blue sky’ disruption to innovative food processing techniques. She has a rare breadth of business acumen experienced in R&D, sales, manufacturing and product development. Recently as CSO with Califia Farms, previously leading R&D organizations at Land O'Lakes and General Mills’ Pillsbury and Yoplait. Joana has a B.S. in Food Engineering from the Universidade Católica in Portugal, and a Ph.D. in Food Engineering from the University of Minnesota.

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Enabling Distillers to Make Their Spirits Smoother

Our Product: Viriato

What It Does

WhY spirits BRANDS care

What it is

how to use it

What is the status

PREVIEW — IN DEVELOPMENT

Latest News

ARTICLE by Voodoo’s CSO: The discovery & innovation

article: The Science of Smooth

ARTICLE: VOODOO'S ENZYMATIC KEY TO UNLOCK SMOOTHER SPIRITS

GINKGO BIOWORKS SELECTED By VOODOO aS SCIENTIFIC PARTNER

GINKGO BIOWORKS SELECTED By VOODOO aS SCIENTIFIC PARTNER

spirits industry innovation award

GINKGO BIOWORKS SELECTED By VOODOO aS SCIENTIFIC PARTNER

spirits industry innovation award

About Us

Martin Duncan Enriquez

Martin Duncan Enriquez

Martin Duncan Enriquez

Joana Montenegro PhD

Martin Duncan Enriquez

Martin Duncan Enriquez

Contact Us

Voodoo ScientifiC USA, Inc.