Alcademics

In my latest article for CooksScience.com, I wrote about bartenders using isolated acids like citric, malic, tartaric, and succinic to amplify flavors and acidity in cocktails.

They're doing this for a number of reasons - to make batched cocktails with non-spoiling citrus flavors, to add a generic citrus flavor to cocktails without specific lemon/lime notes to get in the way, to re-acidify cocktail ingredients that have been centrifuged-clarified, and to make use of tons of leftover orange juice created because uber-popular Old Fashioneds only need orange peels. 

My part of the story is the investigation into how and why bartenders are playing with isolated acids; then the team from America's Test Kitchen played around with the actual acids, and creating a couple of cocktails with added acids you can try at home. 

Give it a read!