Nick Ryan is enchanted by the astonishingly viscous marvel that is 1924 Seppeltsfield Para Vintage Tawny.
The University of Queensland’s School of Mathematics and Physics is home to the world’s longest-running laboratory experiment. The experiment consists simply of a glass funnel filled with pitch. Pitch is a viscoelastic polymer, a tar-like substance with a viscosity 100 billion times greater than water. At room temperature, it appears, in every way, to be a solid. It can be shattered with a hammer blow. But as the experiment has proven, it is actually the most languid liquid in existence.
In 1927, a Professor Parnell heated a quantity of this dysphoric substance and poured it into a glass funnel with a sealed stem. He gave the pitch three whole years to cool and settle before cutting the stem. Then he waited. And waited. And waited.
It was eight years before the first drop managed to separate itself from the mass. For reasons unrecorded, Professor Parnell missed it. In fact, he never saw a drip in his lifetime. Nor did his successor, a Professor John Mainstone, who supervised the experiment for 52 years without ever witnessing the liberation of a single drop. In fact, not one of the nine drops seduced by gravity since the experiment began has been witnessed in real time.
If you’re wondering where all this going—and it’s a reasonable question to ask—the answer lies in the small glass on my desk as I type. It contains what could well
This Article was originally published on World of Fine Wine
