How many times have you heard: “I don’t drink distilled alcoholic beverages…they are too harsh!” or “I only drink cocktails, they are sweet and mask the bite of the booze!”.

But, what if this problem can be fixed? Easily? Across any type of spirit? Without affecting the complex, rich flavors of the beverage?

All spirits have some level of a harsh, painful ‘bite’ sensation when consumed. This harshness exists is in all types of spirits (whiskies, vodkas, tequilas, brandies, rums, etc.) and all quality levels (including the ‘top shelf’ that can cost over $1000/bottle), and has stubbornly persisted for centuries. Nothing in the industry has been able to fully eliminate that negative attribute. Distilling, filtering, barrel-aging… nothing fully eliminates this unpleasant ‘bite’. And keep in mind, distillers use a whole host of tools and processes - none cheap - to try and deliver as smooth a beverage as possible today.

After a few decades in a barrel, you might find some mellowing of a whiskey or after multiple energy intensive distillations you might see some softening of a vodka but there's always a residual bite.

But imagine a world where you can eliminate the bite before distilling or before aging? For any spirit type?

The truth is, over the last 50 years the most-often used description in spirits advertising has been “smooth”. Clearly it's a key feature consumers are looking for.

The spirits industry has been pursuing a strategy of “premiumization”, creating more premium versions of their products and encouraging customers to trade-up to those higher priced premium products. The super-premium and ultra-premium products often have prices that are 50% to 1000% higher than the standard product. Premiumization is a well documented trend in the Food and Beverage Industry where consumers are seeking better experiences from their products, experimenting and not simply choosing the same familiar brands. The phrase “less, but better” articulates the evolving purchasing habit of drinking less volume but spending for products they perceive as better. (Source: IWSR). And in spirits, "better" usually means "smooth and sippable".

The Voodoo Discovery

Voodoo Scientific’s Chief Science Officer led the scientific discovery of the cause of the harsh, painful ‘bite’ sensation in spirits! The scientific cause had remained an elusive mystery for literally centuries. Understanding the specific compounds that cause harshness enabled us to create a way to target and neutralize just those offending compounds without changing anything else in the spirit.

Proven to Work

We have proven it works! Proven in rigorous lab tests showing the product is effective at neutralizing the target compounds. And proven to eliminate the ‘bite’ in distiller trials by testing different types spirits.

Easy to Adopt Product

We specifically designed our product so distillers can easily integrate it as a powder or liquid into their current process (from craft-scale to mega-scale). It does not adversely affect their manufacturing throughput or ethanol production. Distillers do not need to change their existing processes, no need to buy new equipment, no need to change their labels, and most importantly — the carefully-crafted unique flavor profile of the spirit does not change — only the ‘bite’ sensation is removed! The same spirit, smoother.

Award-Winning

The top spirits industry association, DISCUS (Distilled Spirits Council of the US), recognized OUR product as a top innovation in the spirits industry presenting an award at their recent annual conference.

Protecting our Invention

We filed a patent application in December 2022 to protect our unique method, starting in the US and expanding internationally once it is approved. We also plan to file a patent application in 2024 to protect our specific enzymatic product from being copied.

Large Market

The spirits industry is enormous with 1000s of brands producing >$500 billion in sales from 30 billion bottles and >22 billion liters in annually! Staggering.

Product Progress

We have an initial product that is proven to work (noted above), however, we are optimizing it for maximum effectiveness. We have hired our scientific partner, Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE:DNA) and they are now optimizing our enzymatic product to our final specifications. Once this step is complete, we will work with a top-tier manufacturing partner who will develop the production process and scale-up to commercial quantities. The production of these types of products are not new and these partners take new enzymes to market all the time.

There are also regulatory (e.g. FDA) approvals required for our final product, but the process is well understood.

Why Our Customers Care

We will sell to distillers to improve their spirits brands. What we hear from distillers is they would leverage our product for:

• Increased Revenue from Higher Sales Volume, Market Share, and Margin. Consumers prefer smoother spirits, with the Premium spirits typically commanding higher prices by 50% to 1000%. Using our product, they can turn a $20 bottle into a $200 bottle.
• New Product Innovation Potential.  Without the distraction of harshness, the more subtle attributes that distillers artistically create in their spirits can be better perceived and enjoyed. New flavor profiles are now possible without the  distracting harshness. Imagine even more subtle gins or complex flavored vodkas, or aged spirits that can now showcase all the flavors from the barrel, and when aging spirits becomes simply about flavor development without the need to ‘mellow’.
• Potential Manufacturing Efficiencies.  With the harsh compounds already eliminated, distillers may be able to: capture more ethanol by cutting wider, use less energy by distilling to lower proofs,  and increase throughput by requiring less filtration. Expensive barrel aging might be shorter if it is only needed to impart flavors and not having to also overcome harshness, which would save aging expenses and angels’ share losses while enabling products to get to market faster. 

Go-to-Market Plan

Although it is premature to do full-scale selling before we have enough product for distillers’ testing, we are proceeding with early customer conversations to have a strong set of prospects ready to proceed at that time. We see three major customer segments: Craft Distillers, Multinational Conglomerates, and Bulk Producers.

• Craft brands are relatively smaller, however, are faster to adopt new innovations and are influential in moving the consumer trends and industry’s product trends. Although not our top priority, we have some influential craft brands already interested in launching new smooth products and will be pursuing other influential brands.
• Multinational conglomerates own most big brands, over 1000 combined, and have $billions in sales. There are 10 conglomerates that are the biggest, with many types of spirits and often many brands in each type. These brands often have the largest sales volume, in part due to the larger advertising budgets needed to create widely known brands. We have existing high-level contacts at several, and there is strong interest.
• Bulk producers make massive quantities of spirits and supply many small brands and many well-known brands. Bulk producers have many product choices within each type of spirit (e.g. corn vodka, winter wheat vodka, etc.) and it is easy for them to use our product to create a new ‘ultra-premium’ option that they can sell at a higher margin to their many brand customers.

We do not expect any brand to drop their current product formulation (Jack Daniel’s Old #7) in favor of a new smooth one, rather it is very common for a brand to launch new ‘flanker' products. Example of Jack Daniel’s Old #7 as the main product, then flanker products Jack Daniel’s Honey and Apple, Jack Daniel’s Fire, Gentleman Jack, etc.

In summary, “smooth” is a highly desirable attribute in spirits. Desirable both because it is preferred by consumers, and also because it can command a higher price. The harsh ‘bite’ remains an obstacle to achieving truly smooth.

Voodoo Scientific’s product enables distillers to control or eliminate the bite while not affecting the flavors of their product. It is easily used by any size distiller making any kind of spirit, requiring no changes to processes and no new equipment.

Meet the Founders

Voodoo Scientific was founded by two accomplished and experienced professionals, who are also a married couple.

Joana Montenegro, Ph.D., is the Chief Science Officer with primary responsibility for the technical aspects of the company. Joana is a respected food industry executive and innovator whose inventions and trade secrets include over $5B in new revenue, and over $100 million in cost savings. Her innovation skill set spans ‘blue sky’ disruption to innovative food processing techniques. She has a rare breadth of business acumen experienced in R&D, sales, manufacturing and product development. Recently as CSO with Califia Farms, previously leading R&D organizations at Land O'Lakes and General Mills’ Pillsbury and Yoplait. Joana has a B.S. in Food Engineering from the Universidade Católica in Portugal, and a Ph.D. in Food Engineering from the University of Minnesota.

Martin Enriquez, is the CEO with primary responsibility for the business and commercial aspects of the company. Martin’s experience spans CEO/CxO roles leading early-stage companies, to executive roles at market leaders Visa and Vodafone, earning global credentials with hands-on work in over 20 countries. Martin has M.B.A. and M.Ed. Degrees from Stanford University.

We may not need any other investment besides the $2M we are currently raising outside of Wefunder and the $1.2M we are raising on Wefunder.