INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The most hand-wavy one to me is the impression matching
Rosemary smells cold, and Fernet-Branca tastes cold even when it's room temperature
If the scent has rosemary, is Fernet now a good match for that? Some of the neuroscience stuff that I've read has indicated that these more
abstract ideas are represented by the same sort of neural-firing patterns
Initially, I was hesitant; cold and cold, it doesn't feel as fulfilling to me
But then I did some more reading and realized there's some science behind it and have been more intrigued by that lately.Ars Technica: You
do come up with some surprising flavor combinations, like a drink that combined blueberry and horseradish, which frankly sounds
I would often give people a little taste of the blueberry and then a little taste of the horseradish tincture, and they'd say, "Yeah, I
don't like this." And then I'd serve them the cocktail, and they'd be like, "Oh my gosh, it actually worked
and then you stir them all together and somehow it's lovely
That's basically alchemy right there.Ars Technica: Harmony between scent and the cocktail is one thing, but you also talk about constructive
interference to get a surprising, unexpected, and yet still pleasurable result.Kevin Peterson: The opposite is destructive interference,
where there's just too much going on
When I'm coming up with a drink, sometimes that'll happen, where I'm adding more, but the flavor impression is going down
It's sort of a weird non-linearity of flavor, where sometimes two plus two equals four, sometimes it equals three, sometimes it equals 17
I now have intuition about that, having been in this world for a lot of years, but I still get surprised sometimes when I put a couple
things together.Often with my end-of-the-shift drink, I'll think, "Oh, we got this new bottle in
I'm going to try that in a Negroni variation." Then I lose track and finish mopping, and then I sip, and I'm like, "What? Oh my gosh, I did
not see this coming at all." That little spark, or whatever combo creates that, will then often be the first step on some new cocktail
