Intoxicating Interactive Art: The Whisky Tornado
When we last caught up with the creative pair behind the multidisciplinary studio Bompas & Parr, they'd just completed a rooftop mini golf course constructed from cake. Now these Brits have conjured up something even more fantastical (at least for Scotch drinkers): a whisky tornado you can take hits from.
A collaborative effort between Sam Bompas, Harry Parr and the science wizards at Kings College London for its recent Feed Your Mind Festival, the boxed-in installation combines humidity and negative air pressure to generate a vaporous spiraling tornado, which you inhale through a straw. The idea of creating an actual twister is meant to invoke the correlation between the Scottish weather, and, depending on the region, the vast effects it can have on the flavor of the country's whiskies.
Enhanced flavor notes come through due to the humidity levels, which means you don't need to inhale much to get a major hit of flavor. "You're really able to focus on the flavors themselves as the retronasal aromatics are heightened while the finish— that burn you get in the back of your throat — is diminished," Sam Bompas tells us. "You also get a lot more air with each inhalation, which opens out the whisky and allows you to experience some of the otherwise barely perceptible notes."
But like the Vaportini, another liquor-to-vapor innovation, the tornado will deliver much more potent effects all around. "Your liver strips out alcohol before it enters your bloodstream, and by using the tornado, the alcohol will be going straight into your blood."
"We've been to hundreds of tastings. They're often quite dull" says Whisky Tornado co-creator Nick Bompas. "This offers something new and dramatic that engages people on a spectacular level."[/caption]
