New Whiskey and Cheap Grace

What if you could cut a whiskey’s aging time in half? Even more, what if you could simulate the flavor of a 6-year-old whiskey in only 6 months? Would you? More and more companies are facing this decision as the TerrePURE process catches on with distilleries in the Carolinas. Developed by the Terressentia Corporation, TerrePURE utilizes ultrasonic technology to eliminate unwanted congeners (i.e. fermentation byproducts that contribute to a whiskey’s taste and aroma), leading to precise flavor control and rapid maturation. On the Terressentia website, TerrePURE spirits are described as having a smoother taste, but outside reviewers are less kind, citing these bourbons’ grainy taste profiles, thin textures, and overpowering ethanol flavor.

IMG_2008I’ve experimented with a few TerrePURE bourbons in cocktails. For example, Hayes Parker bourbon works just fine in mason jar lemonade, and the caramel-heavy Winchester Extra Smooth is a key component in Jessi’s signature anise cocktail (recipe coming soon). But while I have no problem using these bourbons in cocktails, both of them are fairly unpleasant on their own. The old filtration and aging methods provide a certain earthiness, and despite TerrePURE’s claim of being “natural,” you can almost taste the test tube. I don’t want to diminish the work these engineers have done, but TerrePURE skirts around so many of the necessary steps in traditional distilling, and like anything rushed, the shortcomings are obvious when you taste the result. Good whiskey is worth the extra time you put into it. It’s worth the wait. It’s worth the work.

All this makes me think of grace and how, far too often, we settle for a shoddy, rushed version of it.

In my church-based work, I often encountered people who wanted to make sure their sins were forgiven, but once forgiveness was assured, they weren’t willing to take the next steps: changing attitudes and behaviors. Dietrich Bonhoeffer refers to this outlook as “cheap grace”all the forgiveness without any of the transformation. The irony here, as Bonhoeffer points out, is God’s grace has never been cheap; it cost Jesus everything, and now it’s given to us freely. Even more, grace doesn’t stop at just forgiving sins; it guides us into a process of changing to become more like God, to see the world as God sees it, and to love the people around us as God loves us. This process is anything but easy and anything but cheap, and God leads us through it throughout the rest of our lives.

Trying to rush this process is sort of like trying to rush whiskey. There’s value in the process, and if you want to see real transformation, it takes time and dedication.

I don’t want to settle for cheap grace.
I don’t want to settle for six-month-old whiskey.
The genuine article is always worth the time.

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