Curious Cook

Curious Cook in the New York Times: For more aroma, just add water

In my July 28 column I write about water as an ingredient that can enhance the flavors of strong spirits, cocktails, high-alcohol wines, and coffee. Added water has little or no flavor of its own, but it boosts the aroma of alcoholic drinks by diluting the alcohol and loosening its hold on aroma molecules, and makes delicate coffee aromas more noticeable.

Audrey Saunders of Pegu Club in New York has created a number of "inverted drinks" in which a spirit plays the supporting role to a lower-alcohol wine-based ingredient, rather than the usual other way around. Try her Intro to Aperol and also her Madeira Martinez, which is now one of my favorite cocktails.

Curious Cook in the New York Times: Absinthe and champagne

In today's dining section I write about a recent analysis of the fact and fiction surrounding absinthe and its distinguishing ingredient, wormwood. And about the latest from the bubble laboratory of Gérard Liger-Belair, deep in champagne country. And what happens when you mix absinthe and champagne.

Anyone who enjoys sparkling wine will love Professor Liger-Belair's informative and poetic book Uncorked: The Science of Champagne, published by Princeton University Press in 2004.

Lachenmeier, D.W. et al. Absinthe: a review. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 2006, 46: 365-77.

Liger-Belair, G. et al. Modeling the kinetics of bubble nucleation in champagne and carbonated beverages. J. Physical Chem. B 2006, 110: 21145-51.

Liger-Belair, G. Et al. Champagne experiences various rhythmical bubbling regines in a flute. J. Agric. Food Chem. 2006, 54: 6989-6994.

Cognacs contain more dissolved taste substances than other spirits

In a French study of the solids content of various spirits, cognacs and other brandies turned out to be more than 1% by weight polyphenols, carbohydrates, and caramel materials, all of which the spirits extract from the wood barrels in which they're aged. Armagnacs and rums contained about half the solids of cognacs, bourbons about a fifth, and whiskies a tenth. From 4 to 51 samples of each spirit were tested. These are large differences, and indicate that brandies should often seem more astringent, sweet, and full-bodied than their distilled cousins.

Picque, D. et al., J. Agric. Food Chem. 2006, 54 (15) 5220