Balancing Flavours

The biggest challenge to mixing drinks and creating original ones is balance. This is what makes one Manhattan better than another or one drink a classic and the other forgettable. In the big picture, this means choosing the best products and matching presentation to flavour. In the more technical sense, this means finding equilibrium between each ingredient to maintain a balance of flavours. By looking at the science behind taste we can learn better ways to balance flavour and some tricks to making better cocktails.

Traditionally the cocktail is an aperitif to be enjoyed before a meal to whet the appetite. Yes, there are also digestifs, but these should be balanced in a similar way. The ‘classic’ era from which most bartenders find inspiration had a focus on dry, spirit-forward drinks. The more developed a palate is, the more it will crave this dryness as it enables more clarification and intensity of flavour. The goal to mixing drinks is to negotiate between each flavour component to achieve this overall dryness and stimulate the palate. What this feels like in the mouth is a slight tingling on the back of the tongue, activating the saliva glands. Too much sweetness will have an opposite effect, muting the palate and coating the tongue, which not only suppresses the appetite but also dulls flavour. There is also the issue of sweet drinks generally containing too much sugar, of which nobody's diet needs more.

To understand how to balance better, we must first understand how taste works. There are thousands of taste buds on your tongue and even some in other parts of the mouth and throat, all containing up to a hundred taste receptor cells. These chemically interact with any substance in the mouth and send a signal to the brain that is translated into taste. For example, sourness is a chemical recognition of hydrogen ions present in acidic substances like lemon juice. Biologically humans evolved to seek out energy-rich foods and avoid poison, which is why sweet tastes so good and bitter is aversive.

Taste can be separated into basic categories: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and savory. Texture, aroma, temperature, and alcohol concentration also play key roles, as do appearance and psychology, but we will focus just on taste reception. These categories can be separated into two groups:

Group A:        Sweet                        Savory (Umami)                   Viscous
Group B:        Sour (Acidity)           Bitter                                      Proof              [DRY]

[Salty is not included here because it acts more as a flavour enhancer by intensifying most flavours. Salt in the form of minerals is present in small amounts in mineral water, and some drinks like the Bloody Mary or the Margarita can actually contain salt.]
Each type of flavour in Group A is proportional to one another. For example, increasing viscosity will increase the perceived sweetness of a drink, so using a thicker liqueur or adding egg white will achieve a similar result to adding more sugar. Likewise, flavour types in Group B are proportional, so increasing sourness will increase the perceived bitterness or using a higher-proof spirit will increase perceived sourness, and so on.

Group A and Group B are inversely proportional to one another, meaning they have opposite effects on taste. For example, increasing the amount of sugar will reduce sourness, while increasing bitter components will reduce sweetness. The goal overall is to balance between the groups to achieve dryness by leaning slightly towards Group B. Too much of Group A and your drink will be cloying and flat, but too much of Group B will be harsh and certain ingredients will dominate.
A few notes on each component:

Sweet: this can be represented by simple syrup, a liqueur, or a wine. Keep in mind that some liqueurs are sweeter than others and you may be required to balance accordingly. Liqueurs also have varying proofs and viscosities, and in the case of amaro, varying bitterness.

Savory: while it doesn't make many appearances, it can still play a part in drinks. The Bloody Mary, Red Snapper, and Caesar are the obvious examples because of the addition of spices, sauces, and seasoning salts, but a lesser known example is celery bitters. Some of the herbal components to the Bitter Truth Celery Bitters specifically have a savory element.

Viscosity: the addition of egg makes the biggest difference, but liqueur viscosity and simple or gum syrup will also play roles. Adding egg white has many effects on a drink, but probably the most important is increasing the perceived sweetness, which allows you to add less sugar than you might otherwise need.

Sour: this can also be described as acidity, as the sour component in drinks is citrus juice and it is citric acid in the juice that causes the sour taste response on the tongue. Carbonic acid is another form of acidity used in drinks in the form of soda water and sparkling wine and can also be used to balance sweetness. For example, a French 75 should be made a little sweeter before the addition of the dry sparkling wine.

Bitter: perhaps the most interesting of flavour responses, this is literally an on/off switch. While intensity can vary, there are not the nuances to bitter that there are to sour or sweet. This response is one we evolved biologically to protect us from poison, as many bitter substances in nature are dangerous. For this reason, bitterness is entirely an acquired taste and can be more intense for some people than others. Bitter ingredients should be used with judgment as a bartender and balanced accordingly. While some of the best and most interesting drinks have some degree of bitterness, not all drinkers will be able to taste any flavour beyond the harsh response on the tongue.

Proof: this is often an overlooked factor in balancing cocktails. The higher-proof the spirit, the more the flavour will cut through other ingredients, and more importantly, the drier the drink will be as it will increase sour and bitter perception while decreasing sweet. For this reason, using spirits over 80 proof is always desirable when mixing cocktails. In the formative years of bartending most spirits were 100 proof or even higher. As previously mentioned, the drier the drink the more flavour it will offer, so using 100 proof instead of 80 proof whiskey in your Manhattan will make a noticeable difference. If your drink won’t balance properly and you have all the components you want, try using a higher proof base.

There are numerous other factors affecting the taste of drinks, from how cold they are to how pretty they are to how visibly enjoyable they are to the people around you. Biology also affects taste, with specific gender, age, and body type all determining how taste is perceived. There are also specific chemical flavour compounds that increase the perception of sweetness, such as lychee, caramel, or banana, and others that decrease it, like angelica and juniper. With such an overwhelming number of factors, the best place to start is to balance basic flavours properly beginning with an understanding of taste group interaction. Happy mixing!

To learn more about taste, visit the "science" section of www.andonemorefortheroad.com or check out Darcy O'Neil's slide show on the science of taste at www.artofdrink.com

Science of Taste: Personality & Genetics (and how to apply this all to bartending)

Aside from using all this taste information for balancing flavours and understanding how different ingredients interact with each other, there is also important information here about being a bartender and serving your guests. Darcy's presentation revealed some really interesting generalizations that are very useful behind the wood if you're serving someone for the first time.

To touch on mood again, the happier you are the higher your taste perception is, so if you're in a great mood you'll probably enjoy more moderate flavours, and if you're feeling depressed or down, stronger and more flavourful foods and drinks will actually be a more enjoyable choice. Dopamine (essentially the pleasure-biochemical) is released in your brain the more you drink, but the more alcohol is in your system the more your taste perception is dulled. This is is one of the reasons why you should start with lighter spirits and drinks and graduate to digestifs with more bitter and higher-proof components. If you're serving someone who's had a few there's not as much need to moderate flavours as when they first sit down.

Personality also plays a role in how people taste. To put it more specifically, everyone's genetics are different and therefore everyone's personality and taste is different and there are some consistent relations between the two. Typically, people who are very upbeat, perky, and excitable tend to have more sensitive taste perception and therefore will prefer more delicate, moderate drinks and won't like bitter flavours as much. Low-key, down-to-earth personalities often prefer more flavourful food and drink.

Race and age can also affect these responses, with age of course decreasing taste overall (which occurs more rapidly with men), and Africans and Asians typically having a stronger bitter response.

There are three different recognized categories in tasting through this range of responsiveness:
non-tasters (at about 20% of the population),
normal tasters (at 60%),
and super tasters (at 20%).
Super-tasters actually possess a high taste-responsiveness to detection of the PTC/PROP chemicals that increases the response to bitter and will react much more dramatically to this taste than other people. I actually had the pleasure of watching this in action during Darcy's presentation as he handed out strips of paper containing PTC (phenylthiocarbamide), which is genetically specific so non-tasters will get nothing from it, normal tasters will find it fairly bitter, and super-tasters will, as Darcy put it, be 'emotionally upset for the rest of the day.' I can you tell you that he wasn't wrong because it turns out my lady is a super-taster (a fact she STILL proudly and constantly reminds me of), and in fact the only one in the room. She was visibly upset, complained about the flavour all day, and couldn't enjoy dinner that night. I, on the other hand, found it unpleasant but not torturous, and there were people in the room who even put several strips on their tongues and got no taste at all. These non-tasters have literally fewer taste buds and taste response biochemicals, and likely due to their bodies adapting to having one weaker sense, have a much stronger sense of smell then other kinds of tasters.
Non-tasters tend to be male, and they tend to have larger bodies or be prone to obesity. Super-tasters tend to be smaller, thinner, and female, and have the highest response to bitter, so will have or have had trouble enjoying flavours like coffee, grapefruit, or even alcohol in general. They can also be more sensitive to other flavours and tastes as well, including spicy foods and sweetness.

As a bartender, you can use all of this information and "judge" people by their appearance when they walk in to a bar. This is a generalization, of course, but the majority of super-tasters are slim women, whereas the majority of non-tasters are overweight men. So if a slim, young, and pretty girl sits at the bar, it's likely she won't enjoy a Negroni or something similarly bitter, but will probably very much enjoy something more subtle and perhaps a little sweeter like Corpse Reviver #2 or just a 1:1 Martini with a really nice gin and a really nice vermouth (but don't go too sweet, which you shouldn't be doing anyway). Meanwhile, the large, middle-aged man who sits down would probably enjoy something stronger and more bitter, like perhaps a Toronto or Brooklyn cocktail.

When making a drink, focus on balancing primary flavours using the balance information in the previous posts, and make sure you're always thinking about how other people taste and not just how you taste. Use aromas, texture, and the appearance of your drinks to get the most out of them, and I will again reiterate - please don't use too much sugar.

Thanks again to Darcy for his wonderful presentation and all the awesome and intriguing research he has on his site.

Make sure you check out Savory and Bitter
Sour and Salty
Sweet 
and factors that affect taste other than your tongue

Science of Taste: Other Factors Than Your Tongue

We've now looked at all the actual taste factors that affect taste and how they interact, but there are many factors that affect taste. Being a sensory response, it is interpreted by the brain and therefore susceptible to all factors affecting the brain, which is just about everything. Aside from the taste groups, there are several other important variables:
 - smell/aroma
 - physical properties, such as viscosity and temperature
 - proof (alcohol content)
 - genetics
 - mood
 - social factors

The first two are quite simple. Drinking something that smells bad to you will make it taste worse, drinking something that smells floral or fruity will bring out those flavours, etc. Increased viscosity will increase the sweet response on the tongue and decrease the bitter, as previously discussed, and temperature can have dramatic effect; for example, if something is very hot, your tongue won't be able to register much flavour at all (which is why you should always let a good tea cool just a bit before sipping it), and similarly if something is ice cold some flavours will be masked. This is why the proper way to enjoy a very high quality spirit is always neat, or, in the case of some whisky/whiskey, with just a little room temperature water. Drinking a fine spirit over ice will inhibit you from really tasting it. Also, keep an eye for cheap spirits that invite you to drink them cold or even frozen because they're usually trying to hide some nasty flavours that are the results of cheap production.
I also should bring up whiskey stones. I've had friends ask me what I think and my answer is that these just don't make sense to me. Reducing the temperature stops you from enjoying all of the flavour, but furthermore it's not diluting anything, which is at least half the reason we use ice. People drink spirits on the rocks mostly because they don't like the alcoholic burn, and it's the dilution from the ice water that helps, not simply cooling it down. This is a topic for another time (and perhaps someone could enlighten me).

As for proof, the higher the ethanol concentration, the higher the bitterness to the tongue, and the less the sourness. Balancing cocktails has so much to do with dilution and not just ingredients, and what you're doing when you stir or shake is not just drop the temperature but reduce the ethanol concentration, allowing flavours to marry and bloom and other nice metaphors. Using a high-proof whiskey in a Manhattan will require more dilution, and also maybe a dash less of bitters - keep that in mind.

Genetics is obvious. We're all different and therefore we all taste differently. This is extremely important to keep in mind when you're making drinks for someone else, and this is what I'll get into for the next post.

Now, mood. How you feel affects everything in your life, in terms of both perception and biochemistry. To simplify this concept, let's look at chemistry - increased seratonin levels will increase both the sweet and bitter perceptions. Seratonin is released when you feel "good" or "happy," which is when your taste is literally sharpened. There is also a brain chemical called noradrenalin, or norepinephrine, that acts both as a neurotransmitter and a hormone and is typically related to a fear response in our bodies, but also nervousness, and is occasionally prescribed to combat depression. The presence of this biochemical in the brain will improve bitter and sour recognition on the tongue. How can this be applied to bartending? Well, maybe it can't really, but it's still interesting.

Social factors affect all of our perceptions, thoughts, opinions - everything. Ever see a movie or read a book you thought was awful, but a friend explains to you why they think it's great and you start to change your opinion? This sort of behaviour is always present and will affect how things taste. If I take a sip of a drink, give a really happy and surprised look and tell you how amazing it is before I slide it over for you to try, it will taste better to you. If I make a disgusted face and say my drink is gross and bitter then offer you a try, your brain is already assuming it's not going to taste good. This is something you can use when behind the bar. Even just acting passionate about the cocktail you're making or telling a customer that it's one of your favourites will already improve what they'll think about it. Having an excited bartender spend three minutes making his all-time favourite tipple complete with a little history will make it quite awkward to admit to him/her that you really hate the taste of it, and your perception will alter to accommodate. This may sound a little crazy, but it probably also makes a lot of sense. Because it does.

Next time we'll take all these taste factors into account then see how they can be applied as a bartender so that you can give your guests the best of service (plus you'll be interested to hear how gender, race, and body-type have common effects on taste so you can judge everyone before they even sit down).

Make sure you check out Savory and Bitter
Sour and Salty
and Sweet


[[ Photography by Shutterstock.com and the other is of John Belushi and I have no idea who took it but it's awesome ]]

Science of Taste: Savory and Bitter

Welcome to the third part of the mini-series on taste science.
Please take a look at the introduction and a discussion of sweet, 

and the discussion of sour and salty. 

Next we'll take a little look at savory and, my favourite (along with many other drinkers, I'm sure), bitter.

Savory/Umami
This flavour is perceived mostly through the glutamic acid found in monosodium glutamate (MSG), and while not traditionally found in cocktails, is starting to make more appearances due to creative mixology. The only old drinks that come to mind are the Bloody Mary and the Caesar in their flavouring salts, but nowadays people are making bacon-infused bourbon, or duck fat-infused bourbon (see: the crazy boys at The Refinery), and so on.

Increasing savory will
- Increase the sweet
- Increase the salty
- Decrease the sour
- Decrease the bitter.

So, for the creative mixologist here, if you have a heavy amount of citrus and bitter in your drink, using a meat or fat-infused spirit might be an outlandish way to balance things out. Similarly, if you start with such an infusion, you need to be careful when adding sugar to the mix.

Finally,


Bitter
The majority of the receptors on your tongue are extremely sensitive to bitter, which from a biological standpoint is likely protection against natural poisons. The most interesting aspect of bitter that Darcy revealed to us is that there is no range to its flavour. All other flavours can have differences, aspects, and so on, but bitter is literally an on/off switch on your tongue. Bitter tastes the same to the tongue regardless of what it is or where it comes from. There is a chemical, an "anti-bitter," that Darcy showed us called adenosine monophosphate that inhibits the bitter receptors (this is approved by the FDA which means it can therefore be used legally in mixology). This opens an interesting door, because it means you could put one drop of this on your tongue then do a shot of Angostura and only get the spice. For real. (We actually did end up putting some on our tongues, it was crazy).
This is often a challenge in mixing drinks - how do you reduce bitterness? This is especially true considering that most people perceive alcohol as bitter. There are several ways:

- Decrease the alcohol-level (proof)
- Decrease the sourness
- Increase the sweetness
- Increase the viscosity
- Increase the fat
- Increase the saltiness
- Increase the umami/savory

Notice the "increase the sweetness." Yes, this is where all the trouble began. I still remember a friend saying to me once that the key to being a good bartender is mixing ingredients so you can't taste the alcohol at all, which still makes me cringe. Obviously this friend is used to the way most drinks have been made for the last 40 years or so - with tons of sugar. The point of this whole series is to look at different ways to balance other than using sugar. If your drink is on the bitter side due to say, a high proof whiskey and a couple extra dashes of aromatic bitters, don't just add simple syrup - try throwing an egg white in the mix, or adding some soda. If it's a sour, consider backing off the juice a bit, or switching to lemon or grapefruit instead of using lime. (The "increase the fat" part here is more for food taste purposes, unless we again visit the duck-fat-infused bourbon that Joel has at The Refinery).

Bitter is the ultimate acquired taste. You literally have to combat biology and train your tongue and body to withstand it so you can enjoy the other flavours involved. Once you do, though, you'll be opening up your palate to so many new and exciting things, and trust me - you won't be able to stop. I constantly crave bitter and smokey flavours nowadays. Once this part of your tongue calms down, you'll get more Christmas-spice from Angostura, more chocolate and coffee from amaro, soft chamomile from Bittermens Boston Bittahs, and so on. You'll also appreciate balance more in what you eat and drink, and probably get ripped, have many lovers, make tons more money, and own a jetpack. I have no conclusive evidence on some of those, but it's worth a shot, right?

Just keep your mind and palate open and ease yourself in via some softer amari and a well-made Old-Fashioned with a new kind of bitters.
I will return on the weekend with a post on the non-tongue-related factors in how we perceive taste, and how you can apply these as a bartender.
Thanks again to Darcy O'Neil for his inspiration and information.


Also check out this post on Personality & Genetics
and this one on other non-tongue factors

[[ Second photo from frontpsych.com ]]

The Science of Taste: Sweet

One of my favourite seminars that I've been to was the "Science of Taste" by Darcy O'Neil at the Art of the Cocktail festival in Victoria last year. Darcy is a man after my own heart because he not only writes about spirits, bitters, and cocktails, he also happens to be a working chemist and ties science into drinking (I myself went to university for chemistry). Check out his website at www.artofdrink.com
He also wrote the book "Fix The Pumps" on the history of the soda fountain, something I mentioned in Russell Davis' Averna soda cocktail from last month's Amaro April.

His presentation was on taste from a scientific perspective, and how this knowledge can be applied to mixology and bartending. He was kind enough to send me the slide show that he used and I'm going to paraphrase certain parts of it here (to see the full show, you'll just have to catch him wherever he takes it next). I found this information not only extremely interesting, but also really helpful in balancing my drinks at home. I'm going to split this into several posts - a number focusing on the types of taste as perceived by your tongue and how they can interact with each other in terms of designing and balancing a drink, and the last focusing on other factors that can affect taste, including even mood and body-type, and how you can use this information as a bartender. It's also necessary to preface this with the fact that everyone has different taste. This is true biologically and psychologically, so everything below is a general rule.

Most of us are aware of the basic taste groups - sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and savory. There are also scientifically proven, but as of yet unrecognized groups including metallic, spiciness, and coolness (the last of which is a nerve response and not a flavour response). Taste is very much affected by aroma, viscosity, temperature, mood, genetics, and social aspects of the tasting itself, but these are all things I will summarize later on. To start, we will look at sweetness.

Sweet

Sugar is a chemical fuel for our bodies, and we therefore biologically seek out sweet flavours (hence the increasing amounts of sugar in manufactured and fast foods over the last 50 years or more) - some more than others (see: dude with big gulp full of Coke at the 7-11 or anything on the cocktail list at a chain restaurant). Sweet is the only taste that decreases the perception of other flavours, explaining why sugar continually gets added to both food and drink to hide other tastes.

Now here's where the chemistry comes in:
Increasing sweetness will
- Reduce saltiness
- Reduce acidity (sourness)
- Reduce bitterness.

There are other ways to balance a drink by making it seem sweeter than just adding sugar, such as:
- Increasing the viscosity (via egg white, for example)
- Reducing the bitterness
- Reducing the acidity/sourness
- Reducing the alcohol-level (proof).

So if your drink is a little too sour or bitter, you could add egg white, or increase the dilution to balance what you have.
Secondarily, there are some flavours that increase the perception of sweetness:
- stawberry
- lychee
- caramel
- vanilla
- banana

and some that decrease the perception of sweetness:
- angelica
- floral
- cedar
- juniper.

If your drink is going to be too sweet, using gin as a base or adding a little rose water could balance it, and if your drink isn't sweet enough, you could find creative ways to add other flavours without adding straight sugar (for example, Licor 43 has a strong vanilla flavour, and St. Germain has some lychee similarities).

The lesson here is that sugar is not always necessary, and too much can ruin drinks (and started ruining them in general in the 1970's and still continues today). There are other solutions to balancing a cocktail than just making it more sweet. I should point out that all of the above is related to the PERCEIVED taste of the mixture. So adding sugar does not reduce acidity/sourness, or change the amount of citrus juice in your drink, but it will make your tongue think that this is the case. This is the whole science behind adding too much sugar to drinks in the first place - people want to drink a lot of alcohol without tasting it, and the easiest, quickest, dumbest way to do that is to add tons of sugar. The alcohol level doesn't change, but your tongue thinks it does.

Also check out these posts on
Personality & genetics
other non-tongue factors
savory & bitter
salty & sour


[[ Photo by Dario Pignatelli/Bloomberg from the Financial Post ]]