Diageo’s New AI-Enabled Whisky Tasting Kit
Published 20 November 2024
UK-based alcohol giant Diageo’s new multisensory whisky tasting kit and digital masterclass experience incorporates artificial intelligence (AI) to offer a personalised way to try its rare cask-strength 2024 single malt special releases. The kit and masterclass have been designed to satiate what the company has dubbed its customers’ desire for ‘neo-hedonism’ – a term it defines as “finding greater satisfaction in sensory indulgences and redefining the ordinary”.
The experience includes four 200ml whisky samples, tasting glasses and tools, as well as an online tasting masterclass and access to Diageo’s new generative FlavorPrint AI platform that analyses and maps consumers’ flavour preferences based on prompts.
Designed for groups of two to four, the kit contains four unlabelled whisky samples. After trying these, drinkers can add their tasting notes to the digital platform and compare their impressions with their friends and Diageo’s master blenders. A video will reveal the name of each whisky and provide information about the distillery that made it before tasters move on to the next sample. When the tasting is complete, the platform’s AI will offer individual recommendations for other whiskies users may like based on their tasting notes and preferences.
Diageo
In August 2024, Diageo also launched an AI-enabled personalised bottle design station at its whisky brand Johnnie Walker’s Princes Street experience venue and flagship store in Edinburgh. Using a screen, visitors answer three simple questions that guide the integrated generative AI’s design of a customised label, with Scottish painter Scott Naismith’s artwork as a starting point. The label is printed within minutes, and customers can add it to a bottle to take away.