Diabetic’s Urine, Key to a Fine Single-Malt Whisky?

Published on Wednesday, September 8, 2010, by Roxanne Webber / Edit Post

What goes in a good whisky? Grain. Water. The urine of diabetics. Wait a minute ... Yes, the urine part is true for at least one whiskey, according to Wired UK, which reports on a very odd distillation project a designer and researcher into biomedical technologies named James Gilpin is working on. The idea: Use the sugar-rich urine of elderly diabetics to make some fancy single malt.

The source material is acquired from elderly volunteers, including Gilpin's own grandmother. The urine is purified in the same way as mains water is purified, with the sugar molecules removed and added to the mash stock to accelerate the whisky's fermentation process. Traditionally, that sugar would be made from the starches in the mash.

Gilpin, who Wired UK notes is diabetic himself, said the whisky is more of an art project to test the idea of "'utilizing our water purification systems in order to harvest the biological resources that our elderly already process in abundance'" than something for production, so don't expect to find any single-malt urine whisky on the shelves at BevMo.

According to Wired UK, Gilpin will be pouring tastes at 100% Materials, a design show in London, this month, though I couldn't find him on the exhibitor list on the event's website. Exhibiting under a different name? Can this possibly be for real?

 

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  • This is beyond disgusting. My face is green

  • "Normally, urine is sterile. It is usually free of bacteria, viruses, and fungi but does contain fluids, salts, and waste products."

    "Urine is normally sterile, but it can get contaminated through bacteria on the skin and the genitals on its way out."

    There is a reason why they 'teach you' how to take a sample... It is difficult to obtain an uncontaminated sterile sample, but it IS sterile.

    -...+READ

    "Normally, urine is sterile. It is usually free of bacteria, viruses, and fungi but does contain fluids, salts, and waste products."

    "Urine is normally sterile, but it can get contaminated through bacteria on the skin and the genitals on its way out."

    There is a reason why they 'teach you' how to take a sample... It is difficult to obtain an uncontaminated sterile sample, but it IS sterile.

    - Look up blood and urine sterile in the google search engine. There are tons of medical website that back up the information. Would have posted the links, but its not letting me.-COLLAPSE

  • Urine is Sterile. When it's not you get a bladder infection. So that's WHY they test the urine to see if any creatures have gotten past the guards and traveled from the urethra into the bladder. Now when you pee, that sterile liquid passes through a whole germ fest. So it is sterile, but really hard to remove from the body and remain sterile. Even if you use a catheter. Insertion of the catheter...+READ

    Urine is Sterile. When it's not you get a bladder infection. So that's WHY they test the urine to see if any creatures have gotten past the guards and traveled from the urethra into the bladder. Now when you pee, that sterile liquid passes through a whole germ fest. So it is sterile, but really hard to remove from the body and remain sterile. Even if you use a catheter. Insertion of the catheter is a sterile procedure but puts you at high risk for infection because sometimes a few lingering bugs come in with the catheter. So it's still gross. And even though it is sterile it can carry pathogens. Which are not bacteria but super dangerous.-COLLAPSE

  • Love the comments in the Wired article! I wonder if Gilpin is keeping track of whats being said about his project? Personally, if I saw a bottle of urine whisky on the shelf, I'd pass thank you. I'd never be able to get my head around the thought of where the whisky ingredients came from.

  • Urine is NOT sterile. Sorry, darling, but that's a myth.

    When you go to the doctor and they give you a little cup to tinkle in, they test it for all kinds of things and what they quite often find is (drum roll please) bacteria! (Oh, and skin cells, and blood, and all kinds of things we won't speak of. Oh, and drugs.)

  • Urine is actually a sterile substance. Hippocrates tasted urine to diagnose diabetes. There is no need to use urine from unfortunate out of control diabetics to make whiskey, since it can be synthsized in the laboratory.

  • Diabetics are not supposed to drink.

  • Its an art project. Its meant to cause an emotional reaction. And then maybe make you think.

  • talk about organic...

  • I second lynnlato's comment: for there to be sugar in someone's urine, they have to have poor diabetic control or a particular (and particularly bad) kind of renal failure. In a sense, this is just profiting off someone's poor health.

  • Diabetics urine is only "sweet" if their blood sugar is high (generally over 200) and they are spilling ketones. This is beyond stupid... it's foul.

  • If anything ever screamed out "leave things alone" this sure as hell does! I'm putting this one in my "stpidity" folder. Oh brother!