Mile High Spirits to Release First Whiskey That's Been to Space — and Yes, It's Expensive

"I love that we were able to send a barrel to space, and we've picked up these really unique flavors that don't exist on Earth," says Wyn Ferrell, founder of Mile High Spirits.

Strato will be available for sale on August 22. It will be sold in a package that contains a 50-milliliter vial of the whiskey as well as a custom shaker. Five hundred packages will be available for purchase. The cost will be $350 online, or $300 in person at the distillery, located at 2201 Lawrence Street. Most whiskey is sold in 750-milliliter bottles, making this price the equivalent of a $4,500 bottle of whiskey.

The idea came from Ferrell and his wife, Chelsea. The pair are amateur astronomers who perform NASA field research studying asteroids to help with spacecraft encounters and landings. Chelsea also has experience as a project manager, helping build spacecraft for over ten years. "We wanted to combine these passions," says Ferrell.

In 2019, when working on a flight-focused rebrand of Mile High Spirits, Ferrell called his wife and asked, "Do you think someone in your office could send a barrel of our whiskey to space?" After asking two people at the office, she connected with World View, an up-and-coming space tourism company.

World View planned to launch the barrel into space in 2020, but COVID delayed those plans. The barrel eventually launched on July 15, 2021, from Page, Arizona, reaching a height of 106,627 feet above the Grand Canyon.

"It's something that looks to the future of humanity, something that nobody has ever done. ... Everything we do is honored by tradition," Ferrell says, adding that the distillery doesn't deviate from time-honored whiskey-making practices. "So [we asked], what can we do that breaks the mold?"

The base whiskey for this project sat in its barrel for five years before going into space, then sat for another year when it came back. "It's the same base as our specialty releases," says Ferrell. It uses 70 percent corn and 20 percent rye, both from Colorado, along with 10 percent barley. It's bottled at 106 proof, or 53 percent alcohol.

When looking to pay a premium for alcohol — especially one that is the same makeup of a bottle that's typically around $70 — a difference in taste is key. Strato was only in flight for four and a half hours, with a third of that time spent in the stratosphere.

Despite such a short visit to space, the flavor is truly different. Ferrell attributes that, at least in part, to the barrel reaching temperatures as low as -76F/-60C. The back end of the whiskey has a dry, earthy bitterness — almost like a more subtle, whiskey-based version of Campari. "A distillery in the past has sent a bottle to the ISS, and they had very similar results," notes Ferrell.

While Strato isn't available to purchase yet, Ferrell already has his sights set on another space whiskey project. "We're likely to do it again, with World View," he says — though he's still undecided on what barrel to send into space next. "We have some pretty unique stuff [in our barrel house]," he says.

Mile High Spirits will throw a party to celebrate the release of Strato on August 22, with live music and tastings of other new products such as its Wheated Bottled-in-Bond whiskey as well as the Fireside Hazmat Proof whiskey, which comes in at a whopping 141 proof.

So, is Strato worth the price of entry? It sure is a bargain compared to the planned $75,000 space whiskey from a North Carolina distiller. It's also the first "space whiskey" available to the public.

Ferrell believes it may be the first space product available at all. "We've been researching hard — we think it's the first product across any category in the world that has gone to the edge of space," he says. And that alone might be worth the price to collectors around the world.