About Empirical

Empirical, a flavor company founded in 2017 by Lars Williams and Mark Emil Hermansen, has a mission to push the boundaries of how we experience flavor and create unique, unexpected taste experiences. Guided by a child-like curiosity about how the world works, blended with a knack for tinkering, exploration, and continual refinement, Empirical has custom-built machinery, developed hybrid fermentation techniques, and augmented low-temperature distillation to create the best flavors possible.

The company is inspired by the powerful role flavor plays in registering memories and creating experiences. Empirical aims to bring together the past and experiences into something new - something democratic, shareable, and driven by the journey of creating unique flavors. While the process is difficult and frustrating at times, Empirical remains focused on writing a playbook that doesn't exist, one distillation, one spirit, and one flavor at a time. Unbound by convention and undefined by categories, the company breaks away from traditional spirit categories.

In 2023, Empirical collaborated with Doritos to create the first-ever Nacho Cheese-flavored spirit, using a vacuum distillation process to extract the smell and taste of nacho cheese from real Doritos chips. This unexpected alliance demonstrates Empirical's commitment to pushing the boundaries of flavor and creating delicious, multi-sensorial experiences.