D’Orazio is the master blender and chief nose officer at Mackmyra – a multi-award-winning Swedish whisky distillery, and the producer of the world’s first AI-created whisky.
Recipe number 36, generated by an AI algorithm, was the one that D’Orazio personally selected for the groundbreaking blend, before it went into production and on general sale.
This is the story of human craftsmanship and technology working in partnership, to produce something rather special.
Recipe number 36
The idea for AI-created whisky came to light during a meeting between Mackmyra and Microsoft, in which the future of whisky was being discussed. Inspired by the idea, Microsoft partner Fourkind – a Finnish technology consultant – was brought in to develop the solution.
Working closely together with Mackmyra and D’Orazio, Fourkind created its AI solution using Microsoft Azure and Machine Learning Studio, before providing it with the datasets it needed to begin generating its first recipes.
Jarno Kartela, Principal Machine Learning Partner at Fourkind, states that “We chose Azure for its vast massive infrastructure and Machine Learning Studio, and its ease of deployment.”
Microsoft’s Machine Learning Studio – a powerful browser-based tool – was used by Fourkind for its easy serverless infrastructure handling, allowing them to run and deploy their own custom solution, creating a bespoke AI algorithm which intelligently generates new whisky recipes.
After the first recipes were generated, D’Orazio used her knowledge to determine which recipe ingredients would work well together, while correcting other less desirable combinations. As this process was repeated, the AI algorithm began to learn which combinations were the most favourable, and using machine learning, began to produce more desirable recipe combinations.
After repeating this process multiple times, D’Orazio felt recipe number 36 call out to her from an initial shortlist of five recipes, feeling that the AI’s innovative combination of ingredients would make for a fine whisky. While the ingredients were provided by the AI however, the all-important choice of the storage cask, in which the whisky would age and gain its flavour, was carefully selected by D’Orazio herself.
Despite using AI to generate new recipes, D’Orazio believes “The work of a Master Blender is not at risk. While the whisky recipe is created by AI, we still benefit from a person’s expertise and knowledge, especially the human sensory part, that can never be replaced by any program. We believe that the whisky is AI-generated, but human-curated. Ultimately, the decision is made by a person.”
This is not only faster than a person carrying out the process manually, but thanks to the algorithm’s ability to sift through and calculate a vast amount of data, new and innovative combinations that would otherwise never have been considered, can be found.
Source: Microsoft by Esat Dedezade, 5 September, 2019
Microsoft Unboxed: Microsoft Unboxed: Microsoft 365 (Ep. 30) https://youtu.be/6fCa5Z8cl8w
Intelligence can be bought from Mackmyra’s British online shop, at mackmyra.co.uk.
Price: £59.90
Alcohol by volume: 46.1%
Volume: 700 ml
Total bottled volume batch 1: 5,000 bottles
https://mackmyra.com/