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Cocktail Science with Don Lee and Mike Ryan at Tales Buenos Aires

Here at Tales of the Cocktail in Buenos Aires, taking place at the Intercontinental Hotel, I have attended three seminars on one day. The last one was about the science of cocktails. Below are my notes- these are hard to translate from science slides to text, but here goes:

 

The Science of Cocktails: Ice, Infusions, and Insight by Don Lee and Mike Ryan

In cocktails being precise is more important than being accurate - it's better to have all drinks be exactly the same than have the occasional one be perfect. That's an argument for measurement in cocktails.

Don Lee measured the amount of dashes when you dash bitters - to see how accurate a dasher was and how that changes over the course of a bottle. He found that it changed over time, but on average:

Angostura 41 dashes = 1oz = 30 ml

Regan's or Peychaud's 30 dashes = 1 oz = 30 ml

Japanese Dasher Bottle 150 dashes = 1 ounce = 30 ml

Salad dressing oil and vinegar doesn't mix because one is polar and one is non-polar.

No matter what the temperature the ice starts at (freezer vs. well ice) when shaking, the drink cools to the same level. So colder ice doesn't result in a colder drink at the end.

It also doesn't matter if you're using big ice or small cheater ice when shaking-it all reaches the same final temperature in that same time- in about 15 seconds. This is because small ice has more surface area, and on that surface, water that sticks to it and makes the drinks more dilute without great cooling (because it releases a lot of energy to convert ice to water). But if you shake with dry (non-wet) vs. regular wet ice, you get less dilution from dry ice. So shaking with dry ice doesn't make drink colder but there is less drink dilution.

Stirring- things are different. You will get to the same dilution with different ice at the same rate- but you have to stir for a ridiculously long time for that to happen and most people don't. However stirred drinks have less dilution at a normal stirring time, and softer silky texture.

"Cooking ice" - letting it sit on ice and then stirring it later to get a drink colder - this is a myth. It will get just as cold as a stirred drink in the same amount of time. Only when you are actively stirring does it get really colder.

In stirring a drink, it takes a lot longer to do this, so using the smallest ice cube (without surface water - so right from freezer) makes drinks coldest fastest. But of course this is not practical in a bar.

Infusions- consider it with the following variables: base liquid, ingredient you're infusing, the surface area of that ingredient reacting with the base, time, temperature of infusion, and filtration method to get that infusion solids out.

In whisky, you could consider the barrel as being the thing infused. With gin, the filtration method is the type of still - Carterhead vs. other stills. Small batch bourbon - small barrels are larger surface area. But these same factors affect regular infusions we would make at home.

Fat Washing - Surface area in fat washing is the width of the container- where the two liquids are touching. So wide pot = faster fat wash.

Including Pressure in the Formula

Don Lee came up with a formula for infusions, and then a second one including pressure in the equation. Pressure comes in when you use an iSi Soda Canister or a vacuum sealer.

Negative pressure infusions = vacuum = good for putting liquid flavors into solids. (So the solid thing is being infused.)

Positive pressure infusions = iSi soda siphon = good for getting solids flavors into liquids. Don says 5 minutes under pressure and 5 minutes after venting can be the equivalent of weeks of regular infusing. Flash infusions won't extract as many tannins (soluble in alcohol) as flash infusion so you get different results than just letting things steep in alcohol.

Can use a superbag to get most of color out of quinine powder for homemade tonics.

For clarificaiton using agar agar, a refinement is: Agar + Superbag + Salad Spinner = ghetto-fuge that will get liquids out of agar gel the best and most efficient way. A superbag alone if you squeeze it will get agar into final drink. ghetto-fuge is a solution to that.

 

Taste Matters by John Prescott: Many Notes and a Book Review

With its friendly title, subtitle of "Why we Like the Foods We Do," and cover image of a strawberry dripping with cream, it seems that Taste Matters by John Prescott is a light, explanatory science book written for the non-scientist. Not so much.

It is more like a scientific literature review on the physiology of taste and taste preferences, innate and learned; and the bonuses and problems that come with it. It covers how humans have developed physically, emotionally, and culturally to like and dislike certain foods; how sometimes this doesn't work in our favor (now that we don't eat for pure survival) and why; and what we might do about that in terms of food development.

All of these are interesting subjects to be sure, but at the end of the day the book isn't a fun read so much as a small textbook. Which isn't to say I didn't learn a lot from it. 

Naturally I was looking through the book with an eye toward drinks. Here are some things I underlined, and some observations I drew from them. 

• The basic tastes of sweet, salt, bitter, sour, umami do not combine to form new tastes, unlike smells. So something sweet and sour is sweet and sour; it's never swour. However the presence of one taste can affect the perception of another, as in the case of sour and sweet together. 
• While sour tastes are mostly produced by acids (citric, acetic (vinegar), etc.), and salt tastes are mostly produced by sodium, sweet and bitter tastes can be produced by substances belonging to a variety of chemical classes. Thus when looking at sour cocktails, we can look at the spectrum of acids but we might have more options when talking about the sweet part of the balancing ingredients.
• Though it is commonly thought that hot chillies overwhelms/diminishes other taste sensations; most likely it only distracts from them. 
• Astringency is a textural sensation; mouthfeel. Astringent tannin-containing foods include some nuts, fruits (especially unripe ones), tea, cranberry juice, and of course wine. The sensations of drying and roughness result when the tannins act on the proteins in saliva to reduce saliva's ability to lubricate the mouth. 
• Generally speaking the palatability of foods "seems to reflect either provision of energy or other vital nutrients, or, conversely, a warning of the presence of a potential toxin." 
• Sweetness signals the presence of carbohydrates, which include sugars. Thus sweetness signals the presence of energy. Fat is even more energy dense than sugars and is partially signalled by texture- creaminess, crunchiness, smoothness, crispness all tell you something about a food's fat content. 
• Drugs that block opiod drug enjoyment also reduce the palatability of sweet foods. Does this mean that I can take methadone as an appetite suppressant?
• Sodium is necessary for maintaining the body's fluid balance. Salt increases the palatability of other foods even if they aren't overtly salty. Bartenders are increasingly adding a tiny pinch of salt to their syrups and drinks with citrus. 
• Umami (glutamate) isn't necessary to the body on its own, but we may like it because it may signal the presence of proteins. 
• Bitterness never becomes liked in particular; only in the context of particular foods (unlike sweetness, for example).
• Sourness on its own is unpleasant, but when balanced by sweetness it is palatable. Fruit that can be very tannic when unripe can grow to have a good sweet/sour balance; but then when overripe becomes overly acidic, indicating we should not eat it. 
• Humans have inherent neophobia - fear of new stuff. On the converse, we tend to like stuff we've had a lot. We also learn to like stuff that our friends like. This explains the whole bartender Fernet thing. 
• Comfort foods are really links to happy times or childhood memories and even may combat loneliness as they remind us (subconsciously or not) of happy times with family and friends. I think I'm going to start making more Sunny Delite and Nestle Quick cocktails.
• Taste aversion is when we avoid something that has caused us an ill effect in the past- often a gastrointestinal problem like nausea. It is often learned with one bad experience and can spread to similar flavors. (Mango ice cream that made you sick can make you lose your liking for mango everything, even if the cream was the problem.)  In other words, people who never try tequila again after that high school Cuervo Gold experience have a strong bio-psychological reasons for their reluctance.
• Psychological factors are also indicators on when enough is enough for food. If your table is covered in food wrappers, it's a good sign you're done eating. So maybe if you want to drink less, leave all your empties cluttering the table. 
• Monotonous diets have been shown to help dieters lose weight - you get bored of the food so you eat less.  So to drink less, maybe stick to Vodka Soda. 
• Slimy foods signify decay. So why do people like Jell-O shots? 
• Supertasters are more sensitive to all taste qualities, but they may favor extra salt in foods/drinks because salt can reduce the perception of bitterness. 
• Our perception of peppermint is only partly an odor, it's also part sensation from the cooling menthol on the tongue. 
• Our ability to recognize common odors stays mostly intact until age 70, after which it declines steeply. 
• Women are better than men at identifying odors. 
• Combining new and weird flavors with familiar ones reduces anxiety about them and makes them more acceptable. Thus when a customer is averse to gin, say, maybe play up all the other flavors in the drink as a selling point. 
• Saccharin is a sweetener with bitterness, while aspartame is astringent. The search for a sugar substitute without these side tastes is big business. 

 

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A Visit to the Nordic Food Lab in Copenhagen

This February I was lucky to be invited to visit the Nordic Food Lab, which is located on a boat floating in a harbor off Copenhagen. It was formerly the research lab of the world's top-rated restaurant NOMA, and I believe they still have a close relationship and work together on projects. 

The lab is pretty small: A few work tables, refrigerators and cabinets on both sides of the room, and tons of samples in bottles, barrels, bags, and jars everywhere. It reminded me a lot of my apartment, except that the swaying back-and-forth was coming from the water beneath the boat, not the booze in my belly. 

There I met Ben Reade, a scientist at the lab. He described some of the cool stuff he was doing, such as:

Going into the Swedish forest and collecting all sorts of possibly-edible plants

and doing all sorts of experiments with them, like making tinctures out of them.

He also brewed beer and added three different levels of (incredibly bitter) oak moss to it so see how it tasted. 

I'm not sure what they're doing with this drying (boar?) leg, but they're attempting traditional curing/drying techniques. The one on the right is coated with some sort of wax.

He's also working a lot with fermentation. He made a vinegar from fermented elderflower, which led to us having a long discussion on shrubs and drinking vinegars.

He was also experimenting with kombucha - we tasted a ton of it with different levels of pear juice to seek the optimum amount.

He was also aging vinegar in a mini-solera. How much do I want a set of these barrels?

At the end of the visit we got to taste some non-sweet sugar with added lactasol (not sure if I am spelling that correctly). It's a chemical that inhibits the perception of sweetness. So the powder we tried is mostly sugar but it tastes like nothing. 

Therapeutically it can be given to anorexic people mixed with high-sugar foods as apparently they don't want to eat anything sweet, but of course my thoughts went to cocktail applications: a drop of it in a too-sugary cocktail could dry it right up! (Unfortunately he said it's usually only available in massive-sized quantities.)

Overall the visit was very cool and very inspiring, making me wish I had more space for more experiments at home. 

You can read about the work being done at the Nordic Food Lab on their research blog. 

 

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Filtration in Spirits: A Primer

For CLASS Magazine online at DiffordsGuide.com, I wrote an article about filtration in spirits. This was based on the research I did for my talk on the subject at the Manhattan Cocktail Classic earlier this year. 

Don't Forget the Filtration Factor
By Camper English 

Nearly every spirit undergoes some sort of filtration, yet we rarely acknowledge it as part of production. But filtration makes vodka what it is today, practically defines Tennessee whiskey, is the standard in making white rum, and is changing the look of tequila. Filtration is important.

Generally speaking, filtration refers to the mechanical process of passing a liquid or gas through a medium that keeps out solids of a certain size. But in spirits, we include carbon filtration (sometimes called carbon treatment) as filtration too. Carbon filtration works differently: by absorption, the adhesion of particles to a surface, like flypaper. 

I researched filtration in spirits for a talk at this year's Manhattan Cocktail Classic. While I can't claim category-wide or hands-on expertise in this matter, I spoke with several industry sources who know their stuff. Consider this an introduction to the subject.

The article covers filtration in vodka, rum, tequila, whisk(e)y, and cognac. I hope you'll find it interesting. Get the full story here.

Homemade Tonic Water Filtration

Today's post was written by Kevin Liu. We were having an email conversation about filtration- he uses a small-pore coffee filter that removes the bark bits when he makes tonic water and I thought that filter might also be good for removing charcaol after clarifying spirits- and I asked him if he'd share his information with us.

Kevin Liu is an editor at ScienceFare.org, a site about cooking with science. Kevin is obsessed with cocktails and science and he's always looking for new geeky ways to get drunk.  You should email him at  kevin@sciencefare.org. 

Take it away, Kevin!

Up until recently, cocktail geeks had few options for good tonic water.  The mass-market stuff uses high-fructose corn syrup, quinine extract, and citric acid and lacks both nuance and depth.  To make a really classy gin and tonic meant DIY-ing your own tonic water. As it would turn out, quinine is a controlled substance in the United States because in large doses it can heart problems, headaches, nausea, and birth defects, to name a few.

Let's not forget that quinine was first prescribed as a treatment for malaria and that gin was used to make it more palatable.  The stuff's no joke, and for that reason, quinine extract (the stuff used in commercial tonic) is not available for purchase.

To make your own tonic, you have to go to the source - Peruvian tree bark, or cinchona.  There are a number of places you can order the stuff from online.  I picked up a pound of it from the Pennsylvania Herb Company for about $30 shipped.  That's pretty steep from some bark, but a pound is a whole lot of tree - just 'sayin.  If you consider a four-pack of "gourmet" tonic water runs about $6... the economic benefits start to become apparent.

The big problem home tonic-makers often run into is filtration.  Powdered cinchona is almost impossible to filter out and the cut-up bark (which is what I used) inevitably contains some powdered material as well.  Cheesecloth and fine-mesh filters won't catch the particles and coffee filters clog quickly.

So I hacked some stuff together. I found a website that talks about really small pore-size (1 micron) filters for coffee.  The guy basically bought a polyester filter bag, cut rounds out of it, and jerry-rigged it into an aeropress coffee maker.  Why shouldn't the same thing work for filtering out cocktail stuff?  ...and it does!

 

Aeropress Coffee Maker

In the original article, the poster recommends substituting the polyester round for the standard paper filter - he files down parts of the aeropress to make it fit.  I didn't want to do this, so I just cut the polyester round slightly smaller than the paper filter and used the two in conjunction.  

 

Filter image by Kevin Liu

Filter image by Kevin Liu

The 1-micron filter caught the cinchona bark beautifully; at the end, the filter was a mass of brown gunk and my tonic syrup came out a lovely transparent, sediment-free brown.

The recipe I used was pretty simple - at this point, I just wanted to see if the aeropress could be used with this method as a proof of concept.  With this initial success, I'm planning to move on to more experiments with other flavors, plant materials, and filtration methods.

 

Filtered Homemade Tonic Water by Kevin Liu

 

Recipe

Combine 20g cut cinchona bark with 1 cup water.  Heat to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes.  The liquid should reduce/absorb into the bark such that you'll have about a 1/2 cup left.

Strain the liquid first through a fine-mesh metal strainer, then use the aeropress method described above.

Add between 110g and 220g sugar to the cinchona water.  Optionally, add water until you have 2 cups of product to make a 1:4 ratio syrup.

Recipe Notes

I used 220g of sugar to 20g bark and felt that the result was not bitter enough.  With that being said, tonic water desperately needs citric acid for balance (no, lemon juice won't cut it).  Since I didn't want to add any additional flavors to this batch, I really don't know how the ratios will work out in a completed tonic water.  The next steps will be to start adding lemongrass, citrus peels, citric acid, and allspice.  

But I will say that the tonic syrup as described above, 1:4 with soda water, makes a pleasant and sweet gin and tonic.  It goes best with an easy-drinking gin, like New Amsterdam.  A hefty squeeze of lime or lemon gives a nice balance.

---

Thanks Kevin for sharing your experiments! Has anyone else tried this method or something similar?

Note: Coincidentally, Jacob Grier shared his tonic recipe using a different espresso maker today.

The Science of Dilution

While at Tales of the Cocktail Vancouver, I attended the seminar on dilution by Audrey Saunders and Harold McGee. Saunders is the owner of the Pegu Club in New York and McGee is the author of the seminal work On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen.

 

Part of the discussion was about why we get more aroma in weaker drinks rather than stronger ones. People add water to whisky and other spirits when nosing them to release aromatics, yet this is counter-intuitive: shouldn't the whisky on its own have a more intense flavor that a whisky with just water in it?

The explanation is:

• In strong spirits, alcohol runs out of water molecules to bond with, and the alcohol molecules begin to form clusters. This is at around 30-40% alcohol.
• Aroma molecules like alcohol more than water. They want to leave the water they're in and release into the air.
• When a liquid has a lot of alcohol, the aroma molecules stick with the alcohol clusters and don't escape the liquid as much.
• Dilution dissolves the clusters and releases aroma molecules.

Saunders has been making a series of "inverted cocktails" in which she uses 2 parts of a weak ingredient like a fortified wine to 1 parts of the strong ingredient like whisky. These inverted cocktails are more aromatic than the stronger (1:2) versions of the same drink.

Other fun facts learned in the seminar:

• Chilling also decreases aroma release, as molecules are moving more slowly.
• Some chemicals help increase the release of aromatics into the air, such as salt, sugars, and carbon dioxide.
• Of course, these will also affect the flavor of our drinks.

Carbonation Science

I was lucky enough to get a sample of the Perlini cocktail carbonating system, but before I even got around to using it I was fascinated by carbonation information the instruction manual. 

Note: Yes, I read the instruction manuals.  Pretty much always. 

The Perlini is basically a cocktail shaker than you fill with carbon dioxide (CO2), then shake and pour. The manual comes with tips both for using the shaker, and also about carbonation in general. 

So here are some things I learned:

- The amount of CO2 that will go into solution is controlled by pressure and temperature. The higher the pressure, the more CO2 fits. Obviously when you release the pressure (such as opening a bottle of a carbonated beverage) the pressure equalizes and the carbon dioxide comes out of solution.

- The colder the temperature of the liquid, the more CO2 can go into solution. Thus in the case of the Perlini, you add ice to the cocktail shaker. You can also chill the liquids in advance and not use ice (though the shaker is optimized for ice). 

- To keep the carbon dioxide in solution, we want to minimize the amount of bubbles that form and carry CO2 out of solution. Bubbles form when microscopic pockets of gas are found in imperfections in a piece of glassware (note that in a champagne flute most bubbles form a stream from  certain points at the bottom and sides of the glass) or in debris (solids) in the drink. These imperfections and solids are called nucleation points. The CO2 diffuses into these tiny pockets and blows them into bubbles, which are buoyant and float to the top and release the CO2 into the air. 

- Your tongue has lots of nucleation sites for bubbles to form, and that's where we like them as it tingles. So we're trying to keep the CO2 dissolved into liquid until it hits our tongue. 

- When using the Perlini (or say if you wanted to create a bottled soda) you want top keep nucleation sites out of the container. Thus you want to avoid having solids (like bits of citrus from fresh juices- strain them instead).

- Also, the surface area of ice has lots of nucleation points. So you want to decrease the total surface area of ice, by using larger cubes rather than chipped ice. 

- The Perlini is meant to be shaken like a cocktail shaker, but when you do this bubbles form in the shaker. Thus they recommend waiting until the bubbles settle down before cracking open the shaker- otherwise it can foam over. Viscious liquids (liqueurs, milk) will hold bubbles for longer, so you need to wait longer for the shaker to settle before depressurizing. 

- You're also not supposed to strain the liquid coming out of the strainer when you pour the cocktail. There is a built-in strainer to keep the ice out of the drink, but double-straining will add more nucleation points and fizz while you're pouring it through the strainer. Instead, strain any drink before putting it in the shaker. This cuts down on nucleation points from the pulp, etc. before you shake it. Also, pouring it on new ice will increase nucleation points as well. 

- Carbonated beverages taste more tart than non-carbonated beverages. This is because CO2 dissolved into water produces carbonic acid, which itself is flavorless but somehow adds the perception of tartness. 

- To adjust for the above, you should adjust citrus cocktail recipes towards the sweeter side so they come into balance when carbonated.

- Egg white (and other high-protein) drinks are going to be problematic as they are very foamy. 

- "The acidity from the carbonic acid can interact with the tannins of wood-aged spirits in a way that emphasizes acerbic notes in their flavor profi les, requiring extra care in optimizing recipes." Weird. 

I am excited to crack this thing open and give it a try. I am especially curious to experiment on how carbonation affects the perception of tartness and tannins! 

 

Instant Infusions in Tasting Panel Magazine

I have a short piece in Tasting Panel Magazine about the instant infusion method - using a whipped cream charger filled with nitrous oxide to infuse flavors in spirits - and Purity Vodka's promotion of the technique. 

The story is at this link, which opens a digital magazine reader. 

By the way, the original Dave Arnold post annoucing this method is here at CookingIssues.com.