Did you know that when pubs and bars serve drinks in matching branded glassware it can increase sales by as much as one-third? Weird, isn't it, how one tiny change can have such a big — and measurable — impact on our behaviour.
If you want to play along with this edition of The Glass, grab a drink now and then look at the circles at the top of this email. One of them is very slightly bigger than the others. Can you tell which?
I spoke recently to Charles Spence, a psychologist at Oxford University and the man behind Heston Blumenthal's sonic seasoning experiments, among other things. He's made a career out of studying the links between taste and our other senses, and how all sorts of external stimuli can alter our perception of flavour.
In a forthcoming article for Ferment Charles tells me about experiments from the 1960s and 70s looking for the 'pitch of harmony', the one frequency that perfectly matches the taste of a beer. (In this case it was Carlsberg.) Some of the results were a bit odd to say the least. But researchers were able to show that as beer’s ABV increased people consistently chose higher pitched sounds. People also reported that their beer tasted better when the beer and the tone were ‘harmonised’.
A whole science has grown up from this, exploring the weird things that go on inside our minds when we indulge in food and drink. It shouldn't be too surprising that there's more going on with flavour than simply receiving information from our taste buds. Eating and drinking are, after all, one of the most multi-sensory activities out there.
For instance, researchers have found that music affects how we drink. Two French studies from around 2010 showed that as music in bars get louder we drink faster, and drink more. This could partly be down to the music drowning out conversations, which leaves us with little else to do but tip booze down our necks. But there is also evidence that louder background noise makes it harder to tell how strong our drinks are. And also, that loud background noise dampens our ability to taste certain flavours while bringing others to the fore. (This, famously, is why food tastes bad on airplanes.)
There’s also research that shows we find drinks taste better when they’re served in vessels we judge to be ‘correct’. So the same beer will taste better in a beer glass, and worse in a teacup.
Back to those circles. Humans have a deep-rooted... bias, I guess you'd call it. We associate round shapes with fruity flavours. Research has shown that if you serve a drink in a glass with curved or rounded sides, people will rate it as tasting fruitier than if you serve them the same drink in a glass with straight sides.
It even works when you just have people look at rounded shapes. You can see where I'm going here. Of course we can't prove anything today... those of you who are drinking won't be tasting the same thing, and we've no control group etc. etc., but it's fun to think that some of you may now be tasting your drinks somewhat differently just because I made you look at some circles.
On the other hand, if you want to bring bitter flavours out, you need angular shapes. Something to keep in mind next time you're looking at a beer label, perhaps. Try looking at the triangles below to work out which is biggest, then taste your beer again. Notice anything different?
What’s good
First let’s look at an article that continues along a similar theme to all this psychology of flavour stuff… In Ferment, Mark Dredge writes about the language of flavour.
When we talk about the flavour of a beer, what we mean is our full sensory experience of it. While we perceive flavour as coming from the mouth, it’s actually fully constructed in the brain as a composite of all of your senses – smell, taste, touch, sight and sound – plus context, expectation and your own life experiences, making it a uniquely personal perception.
Tom Usher wrote for Vittles about our relationship with booze. It’s well worth a read.
That British people have a reckless, death-driven drinking culture has become a pervasive form of pop anthropology that now seems ingrained – not just nationwide, as a source of self-deprecation or misplaced pride, but also globally, worn like a tattoo over the T-shirt tans of every pissed Brit abroad all over the world.
Have you made it out to the pub yet since they reopened? Booking everything ahead isn’t quite the same, is it? Writing in The Guardian, James Grieg asks that we spare a thought for the disorganised.
We are about to see what happens to culture when “being good at administrative tasks” becomes a condition of leaving the house. Those who stand to benefit are highly organised go-getters with stable incomes and orderly lives – the kind of people who’ll visit a gastropub famous for its terrine and think, “Yes ... this is the perfect venue for my four-year-old’s birthday party.” People who enjoy Secret Cinema and spend their weekends scrollingthrough Time Out in search of “something a little bit different”. Couples who cut their wedding cake with a sword.
Why are Italians covering their apple trees with ice? Vittoria Traverso explains in Atlas Obscura that it’s to protect the blossom and save the crop.
In photos, the trees look like ice sculptures shimmering in the April sunlight. Their ice coating stands in sharp contrast with the snowless mountains in the background. Beneath the thin ice, the apple blossoms look like they have been frozen in time.
Seen in Bar Magazine, Campari is launching its non-alcoholic aperitivo, Crodino, in the UK. Not entirely sure what I make of the name. Sounds a bit cruddy? No? Just me? Still, I’m intrigued.
Crodino has a surprisingly complex botanical profile […] The sparkling drink today continues to respect the original recipe featuring a blend of 15 high-quality spices, herbs, and roots sourced from around the world. At the heart of Crodino’s aroma and complex flavour profile are renowned ingredients including Nutmeg, Coriander Seeds, Clove Buds and Cardamom.
We’re back with Christian Smith in Drinks Business this month. He reports on a study that claims to reveal how many bubbles are in a glass of beer. But ooooh dear….
It had previously been determined that a flute of champagne contained some one million bubbles, but what about beer?
Researchers – who reported their findings in ACS Omega – estimated that between 200,000 and nearly 2 million bubbles are present in a “gently poured lager”.
Is it just me or is that estimated figure, from 200,000 to almost 2,000,000, rather vague? Colour me unimpressed. What is slightly more interesting though, if you follow through to the press release on which this article is based, is this:
Surprisingly, defects in a glass will influence beer and champagne differently, with more bubbles forming in beer compared with champagne when larger imperfections are present, the researchers say.
Mind you, the total number of bubbles does make for a better headline.
Saman Javed reports that the Queen has launched her own beer brand at Sandringham estate. It’s contract brewed (no surprise) by nearby Barsham Brewery. I wonder whether it’s any good?
The beers, which have been produced using organic barley harvested from the estate’s gardens, come in two variations: a 4.3 per cent Best Bitter and a slightly stronger five per cent Golden IPA.
CAMRA celebrates cider month throughout May. Expect lots of apple related content to come out under the campaign’s banner, including some from cider supremo Gabe Cook.
Nik Antona, CAMRA National Chairman said: “We’re having to celebrate a little differently this May – however, despite having to go virtual, we have plenty for cider lovers to enjoy! Our virtual offerings have gone from strength to strength, and we are looking forward to sharing with our members a special cider episode of our podcast, and more excellent content on our Learn & Discover platform, which is a great resource with a range of audio, video and written guides to help members learn more about their favourite drink.”
And now, English whisky. Writing for Club Oenologique, Becky Paskin gives an overview of the best ones to try.
Over the past 15 years, a tribe of English whisky distillers have been quietly emerging in the shadows of Scotch whisky’s global reign, but English whisky is nothing new. Back in the 1800s, whisky was being made in Bristol, London and Liverpool, but with the closure of Lea Valley distillery in 1905, England’s ‘amber light’ faded away. […] Today, there are more than 25 distilleries producing whisky all over the country, from Cumbria to Cornwall, each with their own signature style.
Also, check out this English Whisky Map published by Cooper King Distillery, showing that there are now 33 distilleries south of the border.
The English whisky distillers have seized an amazing opportunity to explore and experiment, and to take advantage of our position as New World whisky producers. Across the country English whisky distilleries are trialling a range of grains, yeast strains and fermentation periods. There is variation in the type and size of cask used for maturation, and in the type of still being used to produce the new-make spirit.
And finally something to listen to rather than read: Jaega Wise gave us an excellent look into the barrel trade for Radio 4’s The Food Programme back in March. You can listen online via the BBC website.
My stuff
I still have nothing new to share, annoyingly, despite having filed a few pieces some of which are due out any day now. There’s one on pubs, one on how to recover from losing your sense of smell and taste to covid, and the one I mentioned above on the psychology of flavour that features my interview with Charles Spence.
I’ll share links to all of these on my Twitter as soon as I have them. For those who don’t already know, you can follow me on @agladman.
I the meantime here are some blog posts that relate to themes in this edition of the glass.
Here’s a post on the best beer glasses to get for drinking at home. Which of them is most congruent with serving beer, and will therefore make you enjoy your drink more? You be the judge.
And here’s one on how to taste beer like a pro. Tasting is a skill and you can get better at it. That’s a surefire way of getting more from your beer, more so than staring at blobs to bring out the fruity flavours.
Cocktail time
I’ve been extolling light, spritzy cocktails for a while now so it makes sense to go back to the source, the ur-spritz, also known as a Venetian or an Aperol Spritz — they’re basically the same.
2 oz bitter liqueur
3 to 4 oz prosecco
2 oz soda water
Build the drinks over ice in a rocks glass and garnish with a half orange wheel and an olive.
It’s about as simple and classic as it gets. You don’t even need to worry too much about precise measurements. Just a splash of this, a splash of that… Aperol is the most popular choice of bitter liqueur for this and it is delicious if a little sweet for my taste. I like to split it 50:50 with Campari to add a touch more bitterness. I’ve also been experimenting with adding dashes of orange bitters. I might try Angostura next.
And that’s the point of recommending this cocktail: it’s not just a tasty drink in itself (though it most definitely is that); it’s a template for exploration. Try it with other bitters. In the book Spritz, authors Talia Baiocchi and Leslie Pariseau recommend Contratto Aperitif, Contratto Bitter, Mauro Vergano Americano, and Cappelletti Aperitivo Americano. You could give it a go with any amaro and find your own take.
This is a light, refreshing drink that perfectly smoothes the way between the working day and an evening’s enjoyment. It’s great pre-dinner and also as a lower ABV thirst quencher before moving on to something stronger. It’ll really come into its own when the weather finally warms up and I can’t wait to enjoy a few outdoors in the long lingering twilight of early summer.