Are We About to Drink Whisky from Aluminium Bottles?

When you buy whisky there’s one thing you can always count on: it comes in a glass bottle. The color, thickness and shape of that glass may vary, but it’s always glass. Stirling Distillery, however, is now exploring a completely different material for its bottles: aluminum. Could this be a breakthrough?

The Stirling Distillery in the United Kingdom puts sustainability front and center. The young distillery hasn’t released a whisky yet, but it’s already hard at work deciding what the water of life will be bottled in. One surprising contender: aluminum.

When you picture a whisky bottle, you picture glass. If Stirling Distillery has its way, that may soon change. Glass, the distillery says, has its drawbacks.

It’s heavy, which means higher emissions during transport. And producing glass is energy-intensive.

Aluminum is lightweight and widely recycled across the globe—more so than glass. That translates into lower emissions and a smaller environmental footprint.

The big question is whether whisky is actually compatible with aluminum. To find out, the distillery is partnering with Heriot-Watt University.

Researchers there have been tasked with determining whether the metal affects whisky’s flavor. For the study, whisky was filled into aluminum bottles and stored for several months. They then assessed whether the material influenced taste, aroma, or safety.

During testing, tasters detected no difference in flavor between whisky from aluminum bottles and whisky from glass. That’s a key finding, since preserving taste is critical for consumers.

There is, however, a caveat. Whisky contains organic acids that can react with aluminum, potentially causing aluminum to leach into the spirit. The standard coating on the metal can’t withstand whisky’s high alcohol levels.

So a solution is still needed. The team is exploring a specialized internal liner that can handle high ABVs and long-term storage.

Until aluminum is perfectly suited for storing whisky, the water of life will remain in glass bottles a while longer. That includes Stirling Distillery’s own whisky when it’s ready to be bottled.