Did you know there’s a whisky distilled from urine?

Tuesday, 23 June 2026 at 14:35

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You can make whisky from all kinds of ingredients, from malted barley to corn. But every now and then a story crosses our path that’s so extraordinary we simply have to share it. Did you know whisky has once been made with urine? It sounds like a joke, but it was a serious research and design project by British designer James Gilpin.

In 2010 he launched the Gilpin Family Whisky project, exploring how sugar from the urine of older diabetes patients could be used as a raw material for alcohol. People with diabetes can excrete a lot of glucose through their urine. Gilpin took a unique view of this medical issue. He saw the sugar not only as waste, but also as a potential source for making alcohol.

From urine to whisky

One day he even decided to distill a “whisky” from it, though officially you can’t call it that. Not to launch a new brand, but purely as an experiment.

For the project, urine was collected from elderly people with diabetes, including Gilpin’s own grandmother. She was even the first participant in the experiment. The sugar molecules were extracted from the urine, then distilled and purified in a laboratory.

Those sugars were then added to a mash used for fermentation. Afterwards, other whiskies were blended in to create color, flavor, and viscosity. The liquid wasn’t aged in casks, which is why it’s not officially whisky. Even so, Gilpin calls it that and even puts an age statement on the labels.

Each bottle carried the name, age, and origin of the person who donated the urine.

Gilpin Family Whisky as an art project about diabetes

While many people react with disgust, Gilpin Family Whisky was primarily intended as an educational art and design experiment. Gilpin wanted to spark conversation about diabetes, health, and aging. By transforming something uncomfortable like urine into something culturally loaded like whisky, he compelled people to rethink illness and the human body.

The question, of course, is whether anyone actually drank this “urine whisky.” Since the sugar from the urine was purified before use, it should in principle be harmless. Still, it’s understandable that many find the idea unappetizing.