Tales of the Cocktail® New Orleans 2016

What’s in my Drink…Beyond Flavor & Taste? Reduces cocktails down to a sensorial level and explores how varying components beyond taste and flavor can affect the overall experience of a drink. We base our exploration around the use of ingredients that offer up varying perceived sensations, and examine their abilities to be manipulated, and in turn, how they influence the overall impact of a cocktail. The panel will highlight key sensory targets and the ingredients that bartenders have yet to fully harness to achieve affects consumers are not always fully cognizant of. We will examine chilies, and exotic culinary ingredients, but also go beyond with other resources that “trick” our perceptions, while subtly enhancing our sub-conscious connections with the drinks. Our expert panel will illustrate perspectives from flavor science and serve drinks reflecting the profiled sensation, along with a translated parallel drink from the bar science world in the areas of tastants, sensations and perceptions through the use of viable ingredients. The panel, led by flavor expert Derek Elefson and Sr. Flavorist, John Baughman, along with international award winning bartenders Ryan Chetiyawardana and Iain Griffiths of the esteemed White Lyan & Dandelyan bars in London, will look to further the audience’s knowledge into how sensations and perceptions can enhance, or even dull, particular flavors in different cocktails, as well as provide practical insights on processes and approaches that bartenders can utilize to capture these senses. So come and discover how tingling, warmth, numbing, lubricity & much more can enhance your cocktail designs.