Metallica are launching their own brand of whiskey, which they’re calling ‘Blackened’ and billing as “the next evolution of whiskey”.
The band reportedly used a unique, patent-pending “sonic enhancement” process known as ‘Black Noise’ to “shape” the whiskey’s flavour. This involved using custom playlists of Metallica’s music – a different one for each batch – during the distilling process.
The ‘Black Noise’ process involves playing Metallica’s music through a subwoofer to disrupt the whiskey inside its barrel, supposedly affecting it on a molecular level and causing “increased wood interaction that kicks up the wood-flavor characteristics in the whiskey.”
The drink was devised by the metal heavyweights in collaboration with Dave Pickerell, a well-known figure in the bourbon industry and former master distiller at Maker’s Mark.
A new website for the whiskey describes Metallica and Pickerell as “unapologetic masters of craft in their respective fields, they’ve built world-renowned legacies by carving out new spaces and bringing their singular, incendiary perspectives to everything they touch.”
The site continues: “Blackened is a testament to the creative process, to the hard work and determination required to make something from nothing. It’s a monument to the ones who charge into the fray and come out the other side stronger, together. Fueled by decades of creative passion, Blackened is a distillation of the incomparable bond between the band and their community of fans.”
The whiskey is available to order now, and costs $53 dollars a bottle – not including shipping.
It’s not the only high-cost Metallica merch collaboration to emerge this week. On Tuesday (August 28), the band unveiled a new line of Nixon watches, with each new model representing one of their classic albums.
