The Blue Ketchup effect - just another take on e150

After reading this blog post by Dave Worthington, about an e150 experiment he has caried out, I made a comment that was very long anddd I think it's worth it's own blog post in itself

The Blue Ketchup Effect

I did a homemade e150 experiment  a couple of years ago. Having around 8 friends over for some dramming I had homemade some colouring by melting some sugar in a pan (what a mess). I chopped some of this colouring and added it to a whisky that wasn't particular dark. I had divided the whisky in two parts, so I had some that was coloured and some that wasn't coloured. Then I handed around the two sample bottles, one clearly darker than the other and asked my guest to tell me their opinions about the whiskies. As always when you ask people about an opinion about a whisky the opinions will always differ somewhat, but in the group there was a big difference in the description from one sample to the other sample.

Dalheinz

When I revealed that they actually had the same whisky, one was just homecoloured and the other wasn't, they were actual quite surprised. A few of the guys thought it was my colouring that had caused the taste difference, so they decided to carry out a REAL blind test. To their surprise they discovered, that when blindfolded, they couldn't really taste any difference between the two samples.

Now my experiemnt doesnt tell us that colouring doesnt affect the taste. This prank tasting was after a few drams and any slight differences wouldn't have been noticed. It DO tell us that we do taste a whisky with our eyes, or I would say with our expectations as well as with our nose and palate. When tasting the two very similar tasting whiskies (maybe totally similar tasting whiskies?) blindfolded they tasted the same. When not blinded they were perceived and described as tasting very different!

Similar experiments have been observed with ketchup. Test have been made with people being told their opinion about blue ketchup. Not many liked it. Well, the colouring was tasteless, and when tasted blind, noone could tell the difference between normal and blue ketchup. So just the look of ketchup that is blue you expect not to like it. And the colour is just so weird that few people like it, no matter the taste.



The problem with coloured whisky is that colour and taste doesnt match. This can confuse us as drinkers. It will put expectations in your head. It will mess up your brain.

Some coloured whiskies clearly suffer from the blue ketchup effect in my opinion. Something is just wrong when you drink them

I am also convinced that some people are more sensitive to e150 colouring than others and have very easy tasting the bitterness it apparently adds to whisky. Just like we all have different sensibilities to sulphur.The industry (The part that add e150 that is) claims that e150 has nom taste effect what so ever. But that is not the subject of this blog post

Whiskypranks and blind tastings

The label of a whisky bottle has an influence on how I and other whiskyfans appreciate a whisky

No doubt about it. If people tells me otherwise I don't believe them :-)

One good example is how Ashok from Amrut presented/introduced his range to Denmark. He said that if he just served Amrut to others, they would automatically think it couldn't be very good as it comes from India

Instead he chose to battle 4 of his whiskies against 4 from Scotland. Blind. Quite an educating experience. It showed out I had Amrut as clear winner in 3 of the battles. The 4th was a draw.

The 4 sets were :

Amrut 46% versus Glenlivet 12
Amrut Fusion versus Highland Park 12
Amrut Cask Strength versus Glenfarclas 105 (my draw)
Amrut Peated 46% versus Bowmore Legend

Surprisingly my most clear winner was Fusion against a whisky that quite often is declared the best in the world. There you go. In the room of 33 tasters, Amrut won the all catagories except the one I had as a draw which was lost by 1 vote.  I thought the 105 and the cask strength Amrut was very alike and Ashok said he had trouble telling which one he thought was the Amrut of those two :-)

Well this was my most educating experience. The most impressive I have seen was done by the Ardbeg expert, fellow PLOWED member and Malt Maniac Tim Puett, the man behind www.ardbegproject.com !

We selected 4 Ardbeg 10's and wrote down the bottle codes (batch numbers!) Here is the set :


L1 045 - L5 290 - L7 143 - L7 325


We had all the codes written down and Tim nailed them all....impressive (I didn't guess anything..)


I often make some pranks with whiskies. One of the better ones was pouring a cheap blend into an empty bottle of a standard scottish single malt and then serve it. 


Once I went into my kitchen, melted some sugar and divided a bottle in two. Then I coloured one of the parts. After a testing session I send round these 2 blind samples and the reactions and guesses were very different. After the truth was revealed some of the guests tried to distuingish between the two blindfolded and they said they couldn't really tell the difference..


This told me that the colour of a whisky affects how it's received with a huge impact


Last year I was on a holiday on Crete. Local customs is that you get served a Raki after a dinner. This is like a cheap Grappa. One day we visited an olive oil farm http://www.paraschakis.gr/index_en.html

Old Raki Still

They had a Raki which I found a lot more pleasant than the usually stuff I was served before during the holiday. I bought a wee bottle. Last week I served some of this blind at a whisky tasting as first go. People thought it was whisky newmake!

Oh, I gotta show you the view from that olive oil farm :

Paps of Crete!

After the Raki  I served the Mekong Whisky. This is never received positive, but I noted that when I served this blind the negativeness was less!

I observed the same pattern when a very very good whisky is served blind. The positiveness is much higher when accompanied by a label.

Todays review

1. Mekong Whisky

The nose is sligthly chemical , a bit like a weak solvent, not really unplesant, but no way whisky like..well rumours said this is made on 95% molasses and 5% rice with added spices, so this is really not a whisky. I have a hard time reading the label so the details is up to you to read yourself. The taste is like a very mild bitter, highly diluted becherovka comes into mind. A weak woody finish with a not-very-nice sweet touch. Nothing exciting about this, but I wouldn't describe it as flawed either. Greatest thing about this is the short finish.

It will not get a very high rating thou

Rating 55