Author Archives: pjbonamy

On the Washing of Tea

The Gastropod podcast “looks at food through the lens of science and history”, so it’s only natural that they’ll cover stuff relevant to our interests here at Doing Science to Stuff. The May episode The Cocktail Hour provides a fascinating look at not only the history and craft of cocktail making, but also some modern techniques for enhancing the cocktail experience.

Initial observation:

Toward the end of the episode, they discuss a technique called boozewashing. The fundamental idea, expanded upon in Dave Arnold’s Liquid Intelligence, is to use chemistry to pull undesirable flavors out of a drink. In this case, using proteins in milk to pull polyphenols like tannins out of tea-infused vodka.

Question:

How big an impact does boozewashing have on the flavor of tea-infused vodka? Does it impact mouth-feel at all? What about the overall appearance of the vodka?

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Orange Liqueur versus the Brownies

Orange liqueurs are reported to have differing properties, but tend to be similar enough to only require a single bottle per collection. The collection at the Secondary Testing Facility recently had its bottle of Grand Marnier supplemented with a bottle of Cointreau, adding comparative liqueurs to our potential fields of study. For our first foray into the realm of citrusy alcohol science, we consider a simple question: which produces a better brownie, Grand Marnier or Cointreau?

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