Metallica launches whiskey 'shaped' by sound waves from band's music

Josh Hafner | USA TODAY

Heavy metal icon Metallica announced its own whiskey that the band claims is "shaped" by blasting its music directly into the distilled spirit. A former West Point chemistry professor collaborated with the band on the whiskey, called "Blackened," which rolls out to select states this fall.

Blaring a playlist of Metallica tracks hand-picked by the band results in "low-hertz sound waves so intense that it actually enhances the molecular interaction" of the whiskey and alters its flavor, the band said in a statement.

Much of a new whiskey's success comes down to the story behind it, and Metallica has a good one: Dave Pickerell, the distiller behind the whiskey, is a chemistry engineer who once taught at the military academy in West Point, New York. There, he recalled in a statement, low notes from a massive church organ would reverberate through the halls, the lowest of which "would really shake your guts."

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That idea, years later, played into Metallica's Blackened, named after the lead-off track from the band's 1988 album, "... And Justice For All."

The whiskey itself is a blend of bourbons, ryes and other whiskeys that end up in black brandy barrels during its final stages. From there, a proprietary subwoofer amplifies low notes in the band's recordings to apparently "shape" the flavor.

"We are obviously not just slapping a Metallica label on a pre-existing mediocre whiskey," the band said in the statement, citing "several years of work" on "every detail" of the spirit.

The whiskey, with a suggested retail price of $43, will roll out this fall in New York, California, Wisconsin and Florida. If you raise a glass then, make sure it's with the arm that's sporting your Metallica-branded Nixon watch, too.

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