Leading academic Dr Andrea Sella explores the chemistry inside cocktails and food scientist Harold McGee talks about how the future of innovative drink may lie in the laboratory. By Ian Cameron.

Ever wondered why a gin and tonic glows under ultraviolet light? Why champagne bubbles follow each other upwards, but Guinness bubbles go downwards? Do you know the scientific rationale behind mixing liquids in a cocktail shaker?

What goes on at a molecular level in the glasses presented to customers is a mystery for most bartenders. But Dr Andrea Sella, head of inorganic chemistry at University College, London, believes promoting understanding at this level could be the key to developing drinks in the future.

“I feel strongly you can enrich someone’s appreciation of just about anything by looking at things more closely,” he says. “Just as a specialist audience about art historians gets a deeper understanding of Turner’s treatment of light, talking to bartenders in detail about the kinds of things they do and see every day will hopefully give them ideas that they can develop themselves.”

Dr Sella, who has worked with innovative chef Heston Blumenthal on some of his groundbreaking culinary projects, says the next level of innovation among bartenders will be driven only by truly comprehending the drinks we make now.

“I’m not a bartender – I just know about chemistry and basic physics. I just believe the more you know about the world around you, the more fun it is.”

His experiments are beautifully visual, from the gin and tonic glow under a black light – a glow that’s eliminated with the addition of salt – to a demonstration of the importance of mixing drinks by creating a multilayered drink with up to eight components, which shows that liquids don’t actually mix simply by being in contact with each other. “If you went back in a week you’d be able to see it wouldn’t have mixed together,” he says.

“If we look at bubble dynamics, it’s actually virtually impossible to form a bubble from a liquid. Why do they form? How do they form? Why do they appear to follow each other? Are they attracted to each other or something else?

“Salt too, it allows you to do bizarre things with drinks as it has an effect on temperature. Most well-mixed cocktails will be several degrees below zero. Is that helped because of the addition of salt at some level?

“Getting bartenders to think about this stuff will give them more stories to tell and will enrich their customers’ experience too. They’ll never look at something as conventional as a gin and tonic the same way again.”

Andreas is head of inorganic chemistry at UCL. He is passionate about the science in the world around us and in particular the food and drink we take for granted. He will be talking at Drink Factory, part of London Cocktail Summit on the topic: With a Vesper and a Bang – cocktails and chemistry.

Harold, you’re typically a food scientist but you’ve more recently turned your attention to helping solve the problems and mysteries encountered in day-to-day bartending. What kind of problems and mysteries are we talking about then?
They have to do with things like maintaining the freshness of ingredients over the course of service, looking at why they decline in quality. Citrus juices are major components in drinks-making but are actually very fragile. This is about looking at whether there is a way to analyse the nature of, for example, lemon or lime juices and whether we can create juices of higher quality.

So what’s the answer on that one then?
Tony Conigliaro and I are going back and forth on this – he comes to me with questions and issues around bartending, problems and ideas. I suggest ideas then we do experiments and see if we can translate our solutions into real bartending service. We’re not quite there yet.

What successes have you had?
Fresh herbs are of course also used a lot in bartending and we’ve looked at how to maintain their freshness and quality. One thing we have worked out is that it’s easier to get true mint flavours out of mint leaves if you keep them hydrated: and rather than sticking mint sprigs into a glass of water and assuming they just suck water up their stems, it turns out mint leaves can also absorb water through their leaves via small pores, so it’s more efficient to keep mint under water. That can help avoid getting that crushed leaf taste – like cut grass – that you can get when you muddle.

What’s the real challenge in developing drinks in the future?
The issue’s all about the delivery of flavour and texture. When we eat or chew something, or even with something semi-solid like ice cream, food stays in your mouth and gets spread around your tongue. Food science is an accepted discipline – understanding the basics for traditional cooking, of transforming with heat.

But interest in this area of the bar world is a much more recent thing, and drinking is a much more evanescent [fleeting] experience, so unless you make a serious effort at holding liquid in your mouth you don’t get the same effect.

What’s the focus for the future?
It’s partly about manipulation, investigating the ways bartenders can work with drinks to extend and intensify that experience, how to make it more delicious. We are talking about playing with texture, and intrigued by the effects of time on flavour – we all know the effects of aging on wines and spirits. Perhaps we can combine these things in various ways.

Like how?
You might take an individual drink that you happen to be interested in, and change them subtly. By redistilling we can bring in flavours you don’t find typically find in drinks, in the way Tony has brought the flavour of hay into his Somerset Apple, so certainly using high tech tools but also looking back at the fundamentals of drinks to make sure whatever innovation you build in is on a firm foundation.

Harold will be discussing his work with Tony Conigliaro and the problems and mysteries they are attempting to solve in day-to-day bartending in their Drink Factory sessions, part of the London Cocktail Summit.
 

Spirits expert Dave Broom is turning Japanese.

1. Which bar has caught your attention the most over the last few months and why?
Apart from continuing to be blown away by quality and service in Japanese bars, my favourite watering holes are the Coburg Bar, at the Connaught Hotel in London, for its dedication to detail, great drinks and a refreshingly unstuffy attitude; and, quite differently, is the Highlander Inn, Craigellachie which manages to be a whisky bar of superb quality and a local pub at the same time. The bartender is Japanese – there's a clue!

2. Which spirit category has been most innovative over the last few months?
Gin (with the caveat that innovation doesn't mean stuffing every crevice with obscure botanicals) closely followed by bourbon.

3. Is there a stand-out spirit that’s launched recently that you think has real potential?
Sticking with gin, I think Berry Bros. No. 3 is excellent.

4. What do you drink when relaxing at home?
These days I have mostly been drinking... wine!

5. Ever worked behind the bar yourself?
I ran a real ale pub in Bristol in the late 80s. Does that count?

6. What’s your favourite bar (new or old) in a) the UK and b) the world?
In the UK? Anywhere where Mr Bradsell was shaking. And in the world: Three Martinis, Yokohama. That's safer.

7. Pet hate on the bar scene?
Nothing winds me up more than poor service – and nothing could be easier to fix.

8.  What’s the next big trend to hit the UK bar and spirits industry?
I hope its bourbon; I hope it’s simple classic drinks; I hope it's rum breaking through to the mainstream and I hope it's Scotch returning to the fold - but with my track record on predictions it'll probably be the return of Bezique.

9.  If you were a drink, what would you be?
Given the day I've just had, a Sour, and though I'd like to be a Manhattan, most people would say I'm Old Fashioned.

10. What’s will be your epitaph?
‘He was a Glaswegian who got paid to drink’: what did you expect?

Dave Broom will be leading tasting sessions at Bar.10, 15-16 June.