Would You Drink Speed Whiskey from Cleveland?

I came across this article that highlights one of the ways in which the traditional boundaries of whiskey-making are being pushed by modern technology. Tom Lix is a 58 year old serial entrepreneur whose latest venture is a Cleveland, Ohio based company that aims to make high-quality whiskey while reducing the amount of time that the whiskey must spend aging in barrels. Lix claims his process makes six month aged whiskeys that taste like six year aged whiskeys, quite a feat that could revolutionize the economics of the whiskey business if it ever catches on.

The article doesn't go into his process too much, but apparently it involves using smaller-than-standard barrels, a fairly common practice among small-scale and start-up distillers, as well as controlling temperatures and pressures in order to help the whiskey age more quickly. I assume there's more to the process than simply storing a small barrel of spirits in a temperature controlled room, as Nix has a patent pending for his process and has received $25,000 in start-up funding from a Cleveland small-business incubator. He has also received a helping hand from a Kentucky bourbon-maker who supplied unaged white dog whiskey for Nix to use in testing his aging process, saving him the need to distill his own raw product.

Cutting down the time needed to make high quality whiskey would certainly have it's advantages, allowing distillers to bring new products to market more quickly and reducing the costs associated with storing and insuring aging whiskey for years. On the flip side, adding new technology to whiskey production takes away some of the traditional, artisanal nature of the product. What could be less traditional than speed-aged whiskey from Cleveland? Although that does have a very modern, American ring to it.