Sensory assessments and pear drops
When it comes to enjoying a drink, we tend to employ more than just our taste buds: we smell the liquid, look at the liquid, taste the liquid and feel the liquid. That means we use the olfactory epithelium[1], our eyes, the taste buds on our tongues, and the mucus membranes of our lips, mouth and throat.
So all this helps us determine whether we like a drink or not. And as taste is so very subjective and personal, only we know whether a liquid is pleasing or not.
Why do I feel the need to write this down? Well, quite often you’ll find tasting notes on labels, or you may attend a guided tasting and hear someone speak about the drink in your glass.
Let’s look at the following:
[…] Fresh apple juice, toffee and marshmallows on the nose. […] Sweetness but not cloying. […] Autumnal, with a smoky finish. […] Dry, still, tannic. […] Sweet, beautifully finished with a hint of pear drops. […] Taste like autumn – smells like wet leaves and sugar! […] Like a bonfire in a glass – do not drink […] Smoke. Smoke and Smoke – like drinking an ashtray! […] Warming whiskey feeling – cozy, smoky, home! […]
All these comments describe one particular cider. And all of these are valid. Yet, they don’t all agree.
When it comes to tasting, there are no wrong answers to the questions:
Do you like it? What does it taste of? What does it remind you of?
We sense the liquid in the glass via its aroma, taste, texture and appearance, with the first three often being collectively referred to as flavour. Staying on the topic of cider, how is this all possible if cider is mainly water and alcohol?
For ease, let’s consider a cider with 5% ABV: the liquid therefore contains 5% alcohol, and > 90% water. This leaves around 5% of other compounds, some of which provide the flavour. Yet, what we experience when we taste the cider is a combination of water, alcohol and flavour! The whole is bigger than the sum of its parts! Doesn’t sound like much, I know, but it is actually plenty: we have very acute senses!
I recently found myself standing, whilst on a very secret beer mission in London[2], in a room full of great people, sticking pieces of paper into my mouth. We were instructed to sit down if we experienced a bitter and/or unpleasant taste. Some people sat down immediately, whilst others continued to stand, when eventually more sat down and others remained standing.
We all were given a taste strip containing 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP) a compound which is perceived as being bitter, yet some of us have a very low tolerance for it whilst others don’t even register the taste.
Well, in my case, I found myself standing until the “bitter end”, with only a slight, yet very pleasant taste in my mouth – turns out I am not very effected by PROP. Well, hello there American hop forward beers!
Gimme all the hop-bombs! [And] all your hugs and kisses too![3]
But I digress: the point I was trying to make is: we all experience our drinks differently!
@Chimp.Rocket and I recently opened our set of One Juice. Five very fine examples of what cider makers can achieve!
The concept behind One Juice is simple: to see what happens if five makers use the same raw ingredients, but employ their own approach and skills to cider making.
So, one cider maker pressed some apples from their orchard and divided the juice into five portions to be taken away by the others.
Said cider maker was Ross-on-Wye Cider & Perry Co, and the other four were Oliver’s Cider & Perry, Little Pomona Cider & Perry, Hogan’s Cider and Pilton Cider.
The result: one series of five very different ciders, made from the same raw ingredients.
· Ross-on-Wye Cider & Perry Co One Juice 7.5% ABV
· Oliver’s Cider & Perry One Juice 7.5% ABV
· Little Pomona Cider & Perry One Juice 7.5% ABV
· Hogan’s Cider One Juice 7.5% ABV
· Pilton Cider One Juice 5.9%]
When you’re first presented with an opportunity to taste something, you can choose to be scientific about it, write notes, get the flavour wheel out and scrutinise the liquid before you, or you can simply immerse yourself in the experiences. We choose the latter, opened all bottles at the same time, poured the ciders and settled into an evening of merry imbibing.
With makers like the five above, you know you’re in for a treat! Yet, not all lived up to our pre-set expectations… And I guess that the problem with expectations: You think you know what it will be like, but when it isn’t like that you are confused.
Where the ciders as expected? No, not all of them.
Where the ciders terrible or undrinkable? Nope, they were all exceptional!
Did we like them all? Ah, now that’s a great question.
I really enjoyed the Hogan’s, reminded me of sneaking spoonsful of my grandmother’s home made apple sauce defrosting on a little stove in her living room. Equally enjoyed the Pilton – sweet, sweet apples and so easy to drink! Maybe a little too easy, but by the gods, so good.
On the other hand, the flavour of Ross on Wye and Little Pomona were totally different, yet incomparable!
If you know me, you will be aware that I am rather fond of a little sweaty horse character in my ciders! And both, the Ross and the Little Pomona, delivered this farmyardy, wholesome and outdoorsy flavour! True beauty in a glass.
And then there was the Oliver’s!
Well, out of the five, I found this the most challenging – it was smoky, autumny, leathery, yet citrusy and briny. Once I accepted that I had to respect the liquid in the bottle and give it the time it needed, I really enjoyed the cider! But, I first had to break away from my expectations and let go of any notion of what I wanted it to taste like. And only then, was I able to really enjoy what was in my glass.
The cider makers delivered what I wanted: I got sweaty horses, leather, and autumn, I got stewed apples, apple sauce and childhood memories! And above all, @Chimp.Rocket and I had a great evening talking about ciders and flavour preferences.
Thinking back to our 5% cider: how can the remaining roughly 5% of other compounds deliver such vast differences?
The cider flavour is complex: it is a result of the raw material and the processes utilised to transform the juice into an alcoholic beverage.
Commonly accepted cider taste components are: Sugars, acids and tannins, a.k.a. sweetness, sourness/sharpness and bitterness/astringency.
In One Juice the majority of the raw ingredients was identical, so to understand why the ciders where so different, we need to look at the processed and methods the cider makers used to create the resulting cider.
Without venturing further down the cider making and methodology routes[4], we can glance at the processes:
· Ross-on-Wye Cider & Perry Co 7.5% ABV – wild fermented, unoaked, bottle conditioned
· Oliver’s Cider & Perry 7.5% ABV – wild fermented in Islay whisky barrel with a small amount of Foxwhelp added Little Pomona Cider & Perry 7.5% ABV – wild fermented, matured in tank and rum barrel, bottle conditioned
· Hogan’s Cider 7.5% ABV – pasteurised, fermented with brettanomyces yeast
· Pilton Cider 5.9% – keeved, matured in whisky barrel, bottled pét nat
Wild yeast, including brettanomyces, can typically create that farm-like flavour and keeving creates a naturally sweet cider. Pasteurisation can alter the flavour of the cider, from a more fresh to a cooked or stewed apple, potentially where my wholesome memories of homemade apple sauce came from. How we age or mature a cider can also impact our flavour perception, I am looking at you Islay barrel[5].
As mentioned, the cider flavour is complex, so this is just a very, very basic way of making sense of things.
So, what’s the moral of the story then?
Taste is unique to us, and if you taste something, it is there!
Don’t let anyone tell you there should be pear drops[6] or leathery notes in it, when you perceive it as fresh apples or hay!
And on that note, go forth, enjoy responsibly and look out for those pear drops, they are sneaky!
Wassail
xx
[1] Without being too scientific, the olfactory epithelium is membranous tissue located inside the nasal cavity, where our olfactory receptor cells sit, which in turn are involved in our sense of smell.
[2] More to follow when I am allowed! I wish I could tell you, because this is amazing, but I crossed my heart and hope to die – worth waiting for!
[3] I’m your girl if your need badly misquoted ZZ Top lyrics!
[4] I’ll write about this another time – I promise!
[5] Again, story for another time!
[6] Why always pear drops one wonders…
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