When tasting different spirits is there a preferred palate cleanser?

Question

Alan Bishop · Answer

So when tasting different spirits is their preferred palate cleanser? Well it really kind of depends on who you ask and you're gonna get two different answers more than likely depending on the category of person that you ask. So if you ask someone who is doing a spirits competition they're probably going to tell you to stick with very bland foods as a palate cleanser. Things like unsalted crackers etc and good filtered water, RO water in particular. Something with as little chemicals or minerals in it as you possibly can so you can get a good read on that spirit. If you talk to a distiller like myself however you're probably going to get a slightly different answer. Something I learned a long time ago in the industry from a renowned Kentucky master distiller whose name I won't say here was that you need to kind of stay with your baseline. So if you are a distiller and you're gonna go in and analyze say 20 or 30 barrels to put together for a blend for the bourbon that's gonna go into the bottle for the consumer you want to approach that with some comfort level right. So if your habits include having coffee in the morning or even a smoke in the morning you go ahead and you do those things because that's a baseline that your palate is used to working with. Now those aren't really so much cleansers as much as they are a way of sort of grounding yourself to some degree in what you're used to tasting one way or the other whether you're distilling or you're analyzing those barrels those flavors those bottle samples etc. One thing I found a long time ago that has helped me out especially with bourbon in particular that I love as a palate cleanser is high end tortilla chips. They're made out of corn and bourbon is obviously based in corn whiskey. So you want to have some baseline for what that grain raw ingredient is before you start tasting through those bourbons. If you can find them with a little salt or no salt that's better. Again high-end quality water to go with it and use that to cleanse your palate before you switch samples. It's fantastic advice try it you'll thank me.

Devin Ershow · Answer

When tasting different spirits, is there a preferred palate cleanser? The palate cleansers that I like, number one, first and foremost, some water. You want to have some, I would say, room temperature water nearby. That is important. Cold water might affect your palate a little bit. I would also say some nice salt water crackers or something kind of neutral with some salt on it. Pretzels would work too. These kind of things really help to clean my palate in between tastings.

Marcel Thompson · Answer

Pellet cleansers are a really good topic to consider. So when I've judged spirits competitions in various countries, there's been a variation of the pellet cleansers as such at that level. But interestingly, one of the first things we actually have are water crackers because they've got no flavor and they're dry. They help cleanse your palate. Secondly, we've got slices of green apple only because it's you know, just gets the saliva working and that helps sort of flush away some of the some of the residual flavors that you may have had during that tasting session. And the last thing, which may come as a big surprise to most people, is we have candies called snakes. And that's sort of like lengthy jelly type flavored things as well, which we actually use as pellet cleansers. But ultimately, we'll put all those three in there. Nothing really beats water. So you always, when in doubt, you can't go wrong with pure, clean water and use that as a pellet cleanser to anything you wish to try.

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"When tasting different spirits is there a preferred palate cleanser?"