Cocktail Trivia

Tasting: The Nose Knows: We have 9 thousand taste buds in our mouths but we have millions of olfactory receptors in our nasal passages. Close you eyes and pinch you nostrils shut. Place a small piece of apple and then a small piece of onion on your tongue. Don't chew, just taste. Until the aroma has had a chance to travel through the nasal passages at the back of your mouth, it will be difficult to tell the two apart. Here is how you can apply this to tasting different spirits. Begin by holding a glass under your nose, but breathing through your mouth, not your nose. The strong vapors will not be drawn into your nasal passages but the subtle aromas will rise. The next step is to actually taste. Don't take a large sip!  Take a small sip and hold it in the center of your tinge. Let it slowly roll around your tinge side to side and back and to front, touching all the different taste receptors for sweet, bitter, salty and sour. If you do not like what your tasting, do not use this particular spirit in your cocktails. Just like cooking with wine, if you won't drink it, don't cook with it.