Advertisement

If you have an ACS member number, please enter it here so we can link this account to your membership. (optional)

ACS values your privacy. By submitting your information, you are gaining access to C&EN and subscribing to our weekly newsletter. We use the information you provide to make your reading experience better, and we will never sell your data to third party members.

ENJOY UNLIMITED ACCES TO C&EN

Food Ingredients

Newscripts

Scientific Cocktail Toppers, Chemical-Free Beer

by Carmen Drahl
January 13, 2014 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 92, Issue 2

 

BEVERAGE LAB
Credit: C&EN/ACS Digital Services
Newscripts went inside award-winning Chef José Andrés’ headquarters to find out how close two bioinspired cocktail garnishes are to making their restaurant debut.

Libation-loving chemists, step away from the umbrella drinks. New cocktail garnishes in development are sure to please even your precision-craving palates.

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology last fall reported edible drink accessories they concocted in collaboration with chefs in the Washington, D.C., area. Both garnishes are inspired by natural phenomena involving surface tension. The creations are a cocktail boat that scoots across a drink’s surface and a floral pipette that captures a small sip of liquid for palate cleansing (Bioinspir. Biomim. 2013, DOI: 10.1088/1748-3182/8/4/044003).

[+]Enlarge
Credit: Elaine Seward/ACS Digital Services
We love our jobs: Coronado pours a cocktail for the Newscripts gang.
Photo of Cocktail Innovator Juan E. Coronado straining a cocktail to demonstrate a bioinspired moving cocktail boat at ThinkFoodGroup in Washington , D.C.
Credit: Elaine Seward/ACS Digital Services
We love our jobs: Coronado pours a cocktail for the Newscripts gang.

The collaboration started as a result of Harvard University’s “Science and Cooking” lectures, says MIT mathematician John W. M. Bush. He approached renowned chef José Andrés, one of the course’s illustrious instructors, about applying fluid mechanics ideas in the kitchen. Andrés and his company, ThinkFoodGroup, are no strangers to inventive cuisine, so they were more than up to Bush’s challenge.

To make both cocktail trinkets, MIT engineers Lisa J. Burton and Nadia Cheng built silicone molds with help from a 3-D printer.

[+]Enlarge
Credit: Carmen Drahl/C&EN
Drink up: Molds for the flower pipette (green) and a variety of prototypes at ThinkFoodGroup. Edible versions are in the glasses.
Photo of 3-D printed silicone molds for a floral pipette cocktail garnish, and vegetable gelatin-based versions of the garnish.
Credit: Carmen Drahl/C&EN
Drink up: Molds for the flower pipette (green) and a variety of prototypes at ThinkFoodGroup. Edible versions are in the glasses.

The boat works by the Marangoni effect, which some insects use to propel themselves across water. When the “fuel,” a high-proof alcohol such as Bacardi 151, leaks out of a notch in the boat, the difference in surface tension between it and the cocktail spirits gives the boat enough zip to speed around for up to two minutes.

The pipette, meanwhile, is inspired by a class of floating flowers. Its geometry is optimized to pick up fluid drop by drop. Surface tension prevents fluid from leaking outside the “petals.”

Watch cocktail boats in action and see cocktail trinket ­silicone molds at http://cenm.ag/wow.

To determine how close these prototypes are to a public debut, Newscripts visited ThinkFoodGroup’s headquarters in downtown Washington. R&D Director Rubén García and cocktail innovator Juan Coronado showcased versions of the boats and flowers made with raspberry gelatin. (See them in action at http://cenm.ag/wow.) But eager patrons of Andrés’s flagship restaurant minibar will have to wait: “They’re not perfect yet,” García says. “R&D is a big team, and we don’t put anything on the menu until everyone is pleased.”

Those avant-garde garnishes definitely won’t be coming to McGuire’s Irish Pub, in Pensacola, Fla. Newscripts tipster and C&EN Associate Editor Craig Bettenhausen noticed the bar’s menu on the social news site Reddit. McGuire’s bills itself as “one of America’s great steakhouses,” but Redditors thought a better tagline might be “one of America’s great institutions of chemophobia.”

[+]Enlarge
Credit: Adapted from McGuire’s
No chemists need apply: For brewmaster at McGuire’s Irish pub, that is.
Logo for a beer brewed the old fashioned way, by McGuire’s Irish Pub in Pensacola, Florida. “No chemists allowed” appears adjacent to this logo on the pub’s menu.
Credit: Adapted from McGuire’s
No chemists need apply: For brewmaster at McGuire’s Irish pub, that is.

Exhibit A: Page 7 of the aforementioned menu reads, “We brew with only the finest malted barley, hops, and yeast imported from the British Isles, with no chemicals or additives. We disdain synthetics, scientists and their accompanying apparatus.”

McGuire’s head brewer, Mike Helf, says that the entire menu is written in jest. “Without chemistry, there would be no brewing,” he says. Helf tells Newscripts he takes brewing cues from traditional techniques. For instance, he adjusts pH with acidulated malt rather than phosphoric acid and doesn’t use sodium benzoate preservatives. He invites chemists offended by the joke to come in for a pint: “We’ll take good care of you.”

Carmen Drahl wrote this week’s column. Please send comments and suggestions to newscripts@acs.org.

Article:

This article has been sent to the following recipient:

0 /1 FREE ARTICLES LEFT THIS MONTH Remaining
Chemistry matters. Join us to get the news you need.