I’ve been often asked about how to create cocktails using tea, and what flavors of tea, spirits, and additions to use. I’m hesitant to answer this question, because I can’t make the experiment myself to see whether flavor reality matches theory.
That's because I don't drink alcohol, because genetically I lack the enzyme to metabolize it,—even a little bit of alcohol makes me very ill. Thus I can’t tell from personal experience what cocktails are like, and what would work well. Furthermore, in addition to being intolerant of alcohol for metabolic reasons, I am genetically programmed to be hypersensitive to the burn of alcohol…so all in all, I’m a tea-totaler!
That said, I did analyze some data about consumer cocktail and wine drinking for Tim Hanni, Master of Wine.
People in the US were invited to fill out an on-line survey between December 2009 and March 2010. Out of 1485 usable responses, 324 preferred sweet wines, so we called them “Sweet” and 341 were tolerant of high alcohol dry wines such as Cabernet Sauvignon, so we called these people “Tolerant.”
From other data, we know that people in the “Sweet” group are more sensitive to the burn of alcohol, and also more sensitive to the bitterness of coffee. In fact, overall they tend to prefer tea to coffee, and if they drink coffee, 64% say they put some flavoring and/or creamer/milk in it, either always or sometimes.
By contrast, people in the Tolerant group, are generally less sensitive to the burn of alcohol can tolerate high alcohol dry wines, and are not put off by the bitterness of coffee. They prefer coffee to tea, and 67% of them drink their coffee black, with no additions.
When we looked at cocktail versus wine consumption, the difference between the two groups was striking. Here’s how they answer the question: “When you are at a bar or non-dining social function/party, what is your primary choice for an adult beverage?” The numbers are the percentages of respondents.
These differences are statistically significant for wine and cocktail drinking, with more than half of the Tolerant group opting for wine, and fewer than a quarter opting for cocktails. Slightly more than a third of the Sweet group chose either wine or cocktails. Considering that this survey was geared towards wine, this proportion of cocktail drinkers among the Sweet group may be an underestimation of the actual proportion among people who are highly sensitive to alcohol’s burn, and tend to prefer tea to coffee.
To my thinking, these data help me understand why I’ve had so many requests for help with developing tea-containing cocktails!
You can find a summary of the study at: http://www.timhanni.com/ConsumerStudySummary.pdf.
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