Aromas You Will Learn

Triple Header Bourbon Nosing:Invite Your Friends for a Three-Way

Triple Header Bourbon Nosing:
Invite Your Friends for a Three-Way

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Aroma Academy believes the aromatics of fine spirits and wine are best understood by learning individual aromas. There are a lot of different ways to do this, but this is one of our favorites. It immediately ties specific aromas with specific brands, and helps you identify the broad differences between those brands very quickly and with a minimum of frustration.

Below are the specifics of a half-hour nosing session, right down to the brands you’re sampling and the aromas you’ll learn. It gives you a framework that applies to any set of Bourbons and aromas you want to learn about. If you want to put together a nosing of collectible exotics, this will help you understand why they’re special. If you want to slap together a sniffing of what you already have on your shelves, go for it. You’ll be surprised how quickly your understanding of fine whiskey expands.

So, off you go. Let us know how well it worked for you.

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Adding Spice to Gin: Cassia Bark

Adding Spice to Gin: Cassia Bark

Aromas You Will Learn

Every now and then, Dr. George Dodd puts together fairly detailed notes on different aromas prominent in fine drinks. Dr. Dodd has one of a the best developed noses in the world. He’s a professional perfumer and directs the Institute of Olfactory Research at the University of Warwick in Scotland. Here are his notes on the aroma of cassia bark, which adds a surprising, spicy note to modern gin.

Few people know the aroma of Cassia Bark. The cassia tree is an evergreen found in east Asia. There is a distinct overlap in the aroma profiles of the oils from cassia and cinnamon. When you smell it, the ravishing, hot, spicy, and distinguishable “cinnamon-like but heavier” aroma is very evident. This is the archetypal hot, spicy smell. It arouses and conjures feelings of being in markets in far-off Asia or Africa.

The major molecule with the characteristic cassia aroma is cinnamic aldehyde. It’s a powerful odorant that makes up between 70% and 90% of cassia oils — a greater concentration of aromatic oil than is found in cinnamon. Like all aldehydes, it is prone to oxidation. It’s important, when using cassia bark to make a spirit, that the oils be extracted during the distillation rather than before.

Cassia is mentioned in the Bible (Exodus 30:24)  as a constituent of holy anointing oils. It is one of the foundational herbs of traditional Chinese medicine. It’s blood-thinning qualities can damage the liver, and European health agencies have warned against its overuse. Coumarin, the medically active ingredient in cassia does not make it through the distillation process into the gin.

When nosing the cassia solution in Aroma Academy’s gin aroma kit, you will notice that it changes over time. On the first whiff, ‘something’ is there on the wet Aromas Strip — simultaneously vaguely familiar and exotic. Over a few minutes, as the strip dries, that note metamorphoses into a clear, dark, spicy note that is cassia bark’s contribution to the gin. It’s somewhat like cinnamon, as noted above, but more complex.

Bombay Sapphire pioneered cassia bark in gin, establishing it as a marker for new-style gins. It’s distinct in other brands, including Martin Miller’s, Ophir Oriental Spiced Gin, Bathtub Navy Strength, and Langley’s No. 8. We think our friend Guy Rehorst at Great Lakes Distillery is sneaking a little into his Premium Milwaukee Gin, too.

Learn more about the gin aroma kit here.

The Flavor of gin is made of Juniper, lemon, orange, rosemary, lavender and other fruits, herbs and florals.

Blackcurrent in the Nose of Fine Wine

Aromas You Will Learn , ,

Every now and then, Dr. George Dodd puts together fairly detailed notes on different aromas prominent in fine drinks. Dr. Dodd has one of a the best developed noses in the world. He’s a professional perfumer and directs the Institute of Olfactory Research at the University of Warwick in Scotland. Here are his notes on the aroma of blackcurrant, which dominates the nose of many red wines, particularly Cabernet Sauvignon.

When considering our aroma and flavour categories, It is easy to appreciate that blackcurrant belongs to the sub-division of berry in the general category of fruity. In fact, when you are nosing an unknown red wine, the likely sequence of your mental pictures as you sniff and reflect are likely to be – first, fruity and then – on more sniffing – berry and then on sniffing again you may very well identify the unique blackcurrant aroma note. It is unmistakable when you know it.

Blackcurrent Branded 400This aroma note plays such a prominent role in the aroma profile of red wines from some classic grapes, especially Cabernet Sauvigon (CS), and also in Syrah and Merlot (to a slighter extent), that it made sense to give it a distinctive place in our Wine Aroma Kit. Those readers who prefer their technical language in French, will recognize Blackcurrant as Cassis.

Anyone who has ever followed the evolution of the flavour preferences of their children as they grow up, may very well have noticed that many young children dislike the flavour and aroma of blackcurrant juice and drinks, but they often come to like them later in life, sometimes when they are adults. This is probably a strong example of the reduction of our smell sensitivity as we get older.

Aroma molecules with a distinct blackcurrant note have a well-defined molecular profile. One part of the molecule has a group containing a sulfur atom (usually what is called a thiol group, denoted as -SH), and another part has the characteristic bit of a molecule which is called a ketone group (denoted by the symbol –C=O). Therefore this class of molecules is often called the thio-ketones and even by the most extravagant standards of the Aroma Sciences, such molecules can be really smelly.

The tale of the thio-ketones in odor science is a convoluted one and very often, the impetus to investigate such smelly molecules has come from some type of odor problem. It was the occurrence of catty off-odors in tinned meat which first led to studies on thio-ketones. It is interesting that a cat’s pee aroma note is sometimes used to describe a particular odor in Sauvignon Blanc wines. In fact, the scent note in question is not in fact pee, but is actually that of the pheromone spray which a tomcat uses to mark his territory, a strong and powerful odor of a sulfurous nature, not as bad as the olfactory calling card of the skunk, but definitely noticeable in a distinctive olfactory way, as I am sure that many of you know.

One of the demonstrations that we sometimes perform when we are holding Perfume or Wine Aroma days, is to present to the audience, two dramatically different (one low, the other extremely low) concentrations of the aroma molecule which we use as our standard for the blackcurrant note. At an extraordinarily low concentration, at which you begin to wonder about how many smelly molecules are actually there, you get the distinctive whiff of a fine blackcurrant drink, and so attractive is this cassis type of aroma, that it is a pleasure to linger and sniff.

However, at higher concentrations, it is the aggressive and pungent smell-love charm of the tomcat which is evident, and the smelling strip is rapidly removed from the nose. Yet it is the identical smelly wine molecule, at different levels of smell concentrations, which give us these profound differences in our reactions.

Often, you will find the blackcurrant note in a good Cabernet Sauvignon to have a floral character, along with the distinctive fruity note. So, as an additional smelling exercise, for those who possess one of our Wine Aroma Kits, we suggest that you bring an Aroma Strip of the Floral (Rose) aroma note together with the blackcurrant Aroma Strip. At just the right smelling distance, you will get a soft floral halo appearing around the blackcurrant note, capturing the full richness of the blackcurrant theme in the classic Cabernet Sauvignons