Truth May Actually be Myth and Misinformation

Truth May Actually be Myth and Misinformation

Identifying the myth and misinformation that pervade evaluation is key to changing the gross misinformation accepted as truth.  Gaining useful knowledge involves looking past superficial “quickie” explanations to find true reasons certain things happen. 

• Misunderstanding science, hasty explanations, and suppositions lead to myth.
• Misunderstanding events and their outcomes lead to myth.
• Myth is born in marketing departments along with marketing science (not the same as real science)
• Myth becomes memes the longer they exist unchallenged. 

The spirits industry would do well to examine the new set of priorities held by future drinkers.  Younger entry-level spirits drinkers categorically reject marketing nonsense, have a strong sense of community, and readily embrace applied science.  As a result, the spirits industry has a rare opportunity to significantly improve industry credibility among new, young consumers.  Science connects with younger consumers on a higher level, and if applied properly, enhances enjoyment, improves quality, boosts sales and profits, and builds loyalty.

Industry Teachers May not do Their Homework

Brand ambassadors fail in their role as educators. They tirelessly repeat myth and mistaken assumptions until they are regarded as truth. The scientific approach to spirits education dispels misconceptions and myth and encourages discovery.  Industry wins, consumers win, marketing comes to its senses, and the quality bar is raised throughout the industry.

Be Active Against Misinformation

Correct others when they misspeak.  Fact-check.  Journalists tend to create untrue but romantic explanations of how things happen.  Fearless, intelligent, and corrective responses can be a motivation to promote fact-checking among journalists. Misinformation creates Myth. Here are a few examples:

Recently, there have been frequent appearances of articles proclaiming the notion of terroir in spirits, particularly scotch.  The definition of terroir:

• (Wikipedia) Terroir (/tɛˈrwɑːr/, French: [tɛʁwaʁ]; from terre, “land”) is a French term used to describe the environmental factors that affect a crop’s phenotype, including unique environment contexts, farming practices, and a crop’s specific growth habitat. Collectively, these contextual characteristics are said to have a character; terroir also refers to this character.
• (Merriam-Webster) ter·roir | \ ˌter-ˈwär \ terroir: the combination of factors including soil, climate, and sunlight that gives wine grapes their distinctive character
• (Dictionary.com) terroir [ter-wahr: French ter-war] the environmental conditions, especially soil and climate, in which grapes are grown and that give a wine its unique flavor and aroma
• (UK Dictionary) terroir Pronunciation /tɛrˈwɑː/ /interwar/ the complete natural environment in which a particular wine is produced, including factors such as the soil, topography, and climate.  ‘Literal-minded fundamentalists love to call terroir the soil and climate of a specific vineyard, but in truth, it’s about husbandry, about sensitivity to place and its careful management so that the best of things can be delivered of it.’

Consumers have a vague understanding of terroir.  Subsequently, many flavors and aromas which occur in wines are explained away by dumping them into the category of terroir. As a result, terroir is the convenient catch-all for funky, aromas, “It’s terroir, …grapes just don’t smell or taste like that.”  Everything which has no name to the evaluator is called terroir.  Sloppy “science,” and sloppy evaluation leads to misinformation. The diagram below is a good representation of the character of terroir.

Many terroir-associated aromas arise during fermentation and from the yeast, and many more are added from oak barrels.  Some may come from stems and leaves inadvertently left in the crush and fermented along with the fruit.  Some may come from the bacteria found in the soil in particular regions or associated with a specific grape varietal.  Conversations of terroir seldom exist in white wines, particularly those processed in stainless steel.  Human factors of traditional growing and wine making processes within a region influence terroir.  Terroir generally seems to come into the evaluator’s conversations more often when discussing oak barrel-aged red wines, where bacterial and fungal aromas grow during the aging process, perhaps leading to the confusion of barrel-associated aromas with regional terroir aromas and flavors.

Sulfur: Friend or Foe of Terroir?

Barrels are the origination of many aromas ascribed to terroir in wine, some winemakers purify their barrels with a sulfur match (an old Dutch method) to consume the oxygen and slow microbial decomposition.  This process is still common in Bordeaux.  Most add sulfur dioxide to the macerated grapes or the fermenting must in order to kill natural molds and bacteria transported from the vineyard. This has the side effect of aiding extraction. Producers sometimes add sulfites during racking or blending.  Low fermentation temperatures are conducive to bacterial and fungal (spore) growth.  Adding sulfites doesn’t correct all aromas and odors, nor does it affect the minerality of the soil which may come through in the wine, yet its application could affect aromas typically ascribed to terroir.  The chart below, is indicative of the ongoing research of identifying bacteria as specific to terroir.  Much is still unknown in search of the truth.

Fermentation of cool-produced white wine is generally under 16°C. Peak red wine fermentation is just over 29°C.  However, distillation begins at 78°C, and average is around 93°C.  Complete microbicidal sterilization occurs in the 160°C-190°C range.  Fungi and yeast are killed in 71°C to 75°C, penicillium is killed at 55°C.  Aromas in wine commonly ascribed to terroir are killed at distillation temperatures.  

The real killer is the ethanol.  In an interesting parallel, hand sanitizers are used at room temperatures and made from both ethanol and methanol because they break down cell membranes, the bacteria die, and dissolve quickly (amphiphilic).  If the yield of ethanol from a distillation is around 90+ % its concentration is more than adequate to kill bacteria (CDC says 60%, some now say 90% ethanol is necessary to kill Covid completely).  Most of what is commonly described as terroir in wine cannot exist in spirits unless it is added after initial distillation (not terroir, because it did not come from the land or climate but perhaps in the barrel of an aged spirit). Misinformation even causes political turmoil.

How can we discuss or discover a particular terroir in spirits if we do not know where farmers grew the grain? Unlike winemakers, most distillers neither grow their own grain nor know its precise geographic origin. They buy grain from various suppliers and cannot track the climate and soil contributions of a fixed location as a winemaker can with a specific vineyard.

Would Terroir Ever be Significant?

If we cannot understand, recognize, consistently identify, and trace terroir in spirits to its region of origin, what good is it? Is it really terroir?  What could be the terroir characteristics of vodka?  Would we know the exact growing area of the grain or potato (or other source)?  Could we say that it was characteristic (if we could detect it repeatedly) of all grains from that region?  Will we someday sit back and confidently say, “I detect aromas in this vodka that strongly characterize potatoes grown by farmers on the north side of Hill #71 in the Idaho russet potato appellation?” The definition of terroir raises many more questions than its description. Reviewers are desperate for something to write about regardless of the truth.

Terroir in spirits is pushing the envelope of believability and rationale. Science has not yet substantiated its occurrence in spirits. Researchers have not defined or detected terroir in the final distilled products of plums (slivovitz), tangerines (liqueur), lemons (limoncello), agave (tequila), or sugar cane (rum). Producers generally know the sources of these ingredients, whereas they find grain origins nearly impossible to track. Without deeper insight, we see terroir in spirits as myth and misinformation.

Many tasters of scotch swear by the salty taste of scotches that distillers aged close to the coasts of Islay, Jura, Skye, and Arran, crediting the salty sea air and atmosphere for their characteristic salty taste. Marketing again triumphs as science fails to immediately step in and debunk misinformation and myth.

Distillers age these whisk(e)ys in barrels near the coast, and the air may contain a slight amount of salt, but how did the salt ever enter the barrel?  The answer is creative, romantic imagination to support marketing.  The barrel is sealed.  If salt could get in, scotch could get out, leaking or quickly evaporating (some do, and there is an air interchange, but the salt stays outside the barrel.  When one Googles “sea air in scotch,” one finds pictures of scotches that romantic evaluators have reviewed, but no scientific evidence or diagrams explaining how this occurs. Misinformation is also created by those who attempt to fill in the gaps with their own facts.

Writing it Doesn’t Make a Myth Fact

Plenty of reviews feature distillers who note the characteristic in their Scotch, but researchers have not produced a single piece of scientific evidence that verifies its existence.Then there is the smell of the salt.  What is that like?  We know it as a taste without a smell. Taste receptors are on the tongue.

If a cooper constructs the barrel loosely, air could enter, but the Scotch would leak or evaporate quickly. If a cooper constructs the barrel tightly, air can slowly permeate the wood (as it permeates the cork in a wine bottle to oxidize), but salt would be unlikely, if not unable, to pass through the wood or tightly swollen stave seams. The salt crystals would precipitate onto the outer surface of the wood, around the seams, leaving a tiny white line at every seam.  That there is a better chance that microbial bacteria would permeate a seam than salt crystals which remain after wet salty water dries up. In truth, the salt is in solution and carried around by the water moisture in the air, not the air itself. 

Perhaps if the distiller made the Scotch with salty water, inadvertently washed the barrel with saline water, or added salt to the barrel, the story would be different—but not because the spirit underwent distillation and aging near the coast. One other possibility exists if the distiller exposes the mash to open air during fermentation, but that raises the question: “Can airborne salt survive distillation in a high enough concentration for people to detect it?” Research has uncovered nothing to validate that theory.

Seaspray

Seaspray (spume) exists as a natural product of the violent churning of waves and wind.  Called SSA (sea salt aerosol) it is responsible for a significant degree of heat and moisture exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere.  Seaspray bubbles burst at the interface of water and air, rising from crashing waves, commonly leaving light salt deposits on the pier, docks, and buildings close to the wave action and exposed to the weather, but the notion ends there.  

Researchers have detected salinity in wines that winemakers produced from grapes grown near the coast, and sea spray could coat harvested grapes and add salinity to the fermenting must. What about the barley in Scotch? Farmers grow some barley on Islay, but Islay distillers also use barley from other regions. Some of the barley could therefore carry salt deposits, but could the salt survive distillation temperatures at concentrations high enough for the tongue to detect? It’s beginning to look like a myth.

Seaspray Travels

During fierce and prolonged storm conditions, salt spray can travel as much as 25 km within the atmospheric boundary layer, but jet droplets and spumes from normal wave action travel only about 20 cm from the water surface and with the help of storm velocity winds can travel a horizontal distance of around a hundred feet or so.  Storm seasons occur in the fall and winter (cool or transitioning temperatures). Barrel seams are tight enough to prevent leakage.  During the summer, sea spray consists of 60-90% DOC (dissolved organic carbon), and an additional percentage of dead algal cells and the product of algae blooms, not salt.  In truth, do these reviewers smell dead algae and associate it with salt? During winter storms, the salt content is much higher than DOCs.

Subsequent rain accompanying most storms washes down the salts and DOCs to the ground.    Inside the sheltered storage facilities, including those built in the path of winds from the sea, atmosphere salt levels are much lower than those just outside, and the salt still has to get inside the barrel before it settles out of the atmosphere.  Again, detectable salt content in a whisky could come from using brackish water or washing a barrel with salt water rather than from the effect of salt spray, but that is not nearly so romantic, idyllic, or picturesque.  

Not through the Barrel

Salt cannot travel through the barrel staves or their seams to combine with the spirit.  Additionally, we hear nothing from the experts’ blind tastings which verify the taste of algae, dead fish or seaweed in scotch distilled in coastal areas.  If the salt comes from the salty peat burned to provide heat for malting the barley, how did it get to the barley? Truth is science based.

Did crystals of salt from the barley come up through the holes in the malting floor, carried up by rising heat, as the phenolic, smoky flavors did?  Seems unlikely, since salt is easily transferred in moisture. Moreover, flame heat dries up moisture entirely.  Atmosphere or heat alone will not transfer the very smallest salt crystals.  If there was any salt, it may be detected in the ashes of the peat.  Most charts that describe the characteristics of different scotch whisky regions speak to the peatiness of these coastal whiskies, yet do not mention saltiness as a flavor characteristic, either taste or smell. The truth is, it looks more like myth.

Not on the Ship

In the unique case of Jefferson’s Ocean, the distiller has clarified the purpose that barrels are taken to sea.  This process has nothing to do with absorbing salt from the sea air.  Barrels in the holds of large ships, are actually at a nearly constant temperature, but continued sloshing of the liquid in the barrel due to ocean wave action on the ship aids in hastening aging, with constant re-wetting of the oak in the airspace of the barrel and continuous remixing of oak sugars throughout the barrel’s liquid contents.  Shipboard movement frequency is far quicker than stationary aging.  Lashed to the top deck, barrel aging gets the added benefit of extreme temperature changes, hastening the aging process, but could they withstand the beating and increased thermal expansion cycling?

Although Jefferson’s Ocean keeps its mash bill secret, we remain confident that it contains high proportions of corn and rye. Bourbon must contain at least 51% corn, and tasters can detect the presence of rye. However, farmers probably did not grow these grains close enough to the seacoast for them to collect brine or sea-foam deposits.  One story published in Beverage Dynamics in 2017 describes salty tastes. 

Not in the Ship

As an aside, temperature variance measured in the holds of wine-carrying ships to trace heating, shows definitively that temperatures change very little (less than + 3degrees C in the ship’s hold on normal voyages from Europe to the east coast USA, and that dock exposure time, sitting in hot containers in the direct sun, are the absolute worst conditions and a major cause of destroying wines in hot seasons before reaching the store shelves.  The truth can be elusive. Researchers proved the fact only after placing temperature recorders inside wine cases at their source.

Reviewers’ Egos are not Myth: Take Them With a Grain of Salt

Reviewers of Islay and Island Scotches and Jefferson’s Ocean bourbon tend to include references to briny seaweed and salty flavors because they consider such notes obligatory for spirits associated with the sea. They know in advance what they are tasting, and they fear the public would consider any omission of ocean flavors an unforgivable oversight and question their credibility. They think it ought to be there.  If there were nearby sewage treatment plants or fertilizer factories, how would they describe the flavors of the spirit? Misinformation is detected when critics target an area of knowledge or attack the truth.

Additionally, detecting the salt and brine of the sea seems to be a great opportunity to enhance the taster’s mystique. This is especially true if other reviewers don’t detect that subtlety in the same spirit.  It is more about one-upsmanship, “My nose is better than yours.” Prove it through unbiased testing.  Taste these spirits in flights with inland spirits, blind, to convince a scientist.  Until salty shows up in professional sensory evaluations, salty taste is simply not a proven character of spirits made or aged near the sea.  Even more like a myth

Valid Evaluation Testing Fights Misinformation

Perform true double-blind tastings of known seacoast distilled spirits to validate.  Tasting participants should not know there are any coastal or island whiskeys in their samples. In addition, researchers should ask the participants to identify any particularly salty tastes during a subsequent tasting of the same whiskeys presented in a different order.The answers from several trials to ensure high confidence should resolve the issue once and for all.  Until then, the coastal character is a myth of the romantics.

If participants could detect salt, saline, or brine, more questions would arise. “Where did it come from?” and “Are distillers adding salt or saline to the spirit before barreling?” or “Are they adding salt after aging to create differentiation and inadvertently perpetuating the myth?” Too ridiculous to consider. 

Takeaway: Salty Taste is a Myth

Until scientifically proven otherwise, salt in coastally made spirits due to the salty sea air, is still a myth.  Some whiskeys may taste saltier than others, but the real question is how it gets there.  Researchers have never proven that coastal distilling naturally introduces salt into spirits. Salt form sea air is not a characteristic geographic attribute. Adding salt to a whiskey can reduce bitterness.  More questions to ask.  “Do the distillers know this, and is it a dark distillers’ practice?  What other spirits distilled near the coastlines (besides whiskey) have a salty taste?  Is it a character of geographic distillery location?”

Scotch lovers, in their zeal for embellishing their favorite spirits, tend to create an overall regional flavor profile for Highland, Lowland, Speyside, Campbeltown, and Islay scotch. Dumping all the distilleries of a region together by flavors, mouthfeels, and taste to create a regional template or format of character is not a fair idea. Many distillers choose a different style of distilling.  Oversimplifying and generalization are misleading, and create misinformation and myth. Oversimplification obscures the truth and creates misinformation.

Misinformation regarding Geographical Definitions of Style

• Water is a key difference between distilleries. pH and minerality vary from stream to stream to spring to lake. Differences in these qualities are significant reasons for a wide range of mouth-feel variations between scotches.  However, the minerality and pH of water do not change abruptly when arbitrary with politically established or geographic borders.
• Distillers’ practices may be similar in small areas, with some distillers within a region using many of the same practices. Collaboration in sharing techniques with neighbor distillers, is neither region-wide nor border-specific.
• Malt differences create different flavors as well. However, malt is not necessarily regional, and few malting houses are on the same site as the distillery.  As a result, price and availability more often decide source rather than flavor characteristics.  Highland distilleries can use lowland malt. Would that scotch then exhibit the regional highland flavor?
• The supposition that different regions have different characteristics does not belong in objective evaluation, and it is certainly not the truth. For example, the commonly used “full-bodied whiskies of the highlands” and the “light-bodied characteristics of lowlands.”  These characteristics are not the property of any district or region. Any distiller can choose to make any style. Some single distilleries make several styles at the same distillery, regardless of distillery location.

Maps are Deceiving

Perhaps there is some human urge or trait of a few to classify regardless of fact. If one must artificially bundle spirits by region, first research it. Make a solid contribution by establishing regional boundaries by water characteristics.  Hard water ions, like calcium, iron, and magnesium, and pH measurements affect mouthfeel. They may (or may not) contribute to some sort of regionality by intensity (concentration).  Assigning aroma and flavor characteristics to a geographic region is ridiculous. It excludes many distillers in the region whose products are atypical. As a result, regional charts and flavor wheels become a source of misinformation and validate myth. 

There are simply too many exceptions to fall into the trap of assigning a table of regional characteristics to that region’s products.  Let science do the work. Reconstruct it with truth, reason, and forethought. Consider natural resources, rather than convenient geographical borders. Accurate evaluation must never include geographical comment. Predisposed opinions and profile templates cloud objectivity and are unfair. 

Sub-regions of scotch are in the map above.  Note that the Island scotches are considered to be Highland scotches, making it more difficult to come up with a template of characteristics of Highland scotches.

This gross misstatement is included here because amateur nosers and tasters are culturally trained to believe older is better, and expensive is better.  The truth is on the nose and palate.  Blind tastings are a sure way to knock down any preformed opinions about quality as it relates to price and age.  Too long in the barrel brings up many flaws which smell and taste bad.  Evaluators achieve greater objectivity when they do not know which spirit they are evaluating. When a flight consists of three or four samples, retests should occur in different orders.  Taste first, look at the price and the label later. Simple people believe that more expensive and longer barrel aging is better, and marketing is their source of truth and knowledge.  As a result, the spirit with the flashiest or most relatable ads wins. Marketers know this. Marketing is mostly based on myth and misinformation.

Here again, it is all about snobbery, which distorts truth.  Learning the particulars of spirits categories is key to comparing them fairly against their peers.  We all have different tastes. Some prefer blends far above single malts and don’t know why (if there is a “why”).  The same type of snobbery can apply to single-batch bourbons.  Take each category for what it is, and learn the characteristic flavors associated with each category.  “Better” varies from individual to individual.  Evaluators must understand the characteristics of all spirits and how they are made to judge them properly against their peers.

Tulips concentrate ethanol, not aromas. Ethanol is an anesthetic and trigeminal irritant. It reduces the detection and identification of flavors and aromas through irritation and distraction. A glass which shoves concentrated ethanol up the nose cannot be a useful diagnostic tool. Traditionally, the tulip is made for 22% ABV (alcohol by volume) fortified wines sherry and port. The 40% ABV of spirits in a wine glass creates a nose-bomb. Use an open rim glass to allow the ethanol to disperse, and more aromas become detectable and identifiable.

Ignore the myth or seek the underlying reasoning of the myth.  Always be open to positive proof, especially if has a scientific rationale and experimental validation. Test these myths at home. Don’t be afraid to challenge the “experts.” Take back control of what you like from the industry marketers. Using a scientifically designed glass is the key to understanding why many of these myths exist. Most are the result of an unconditional acceptance of the non-functional tulip. Seek the truth, and use the truth when you evaluate spirits. Our research can point you in the right direction, and independent research validates our findings. See how we arrived at the final design for NEAT.

The NEAT Glass (CSO) Corporate Strategy Officer, inventor and entrepreneur, (CRD) Chief Research and Development Arsilica, Inc.

See Full Bio