DailyDirt: Old, Old Wine, Goes To My Head...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

It's actually pretty easy to fool tastebuds when it comes to aged wine -- a more expensive-looking bottle or just a good story is sometimes enough to make people think a wine tastes better than it does. No one trusts wine that comes out of a plastic spigot on a box, but if you tell people you've gone to extraordinary lengths to store wine for years, some folks are willing to cough up thousands of dollars for the chance to drink it. If you're a knowledgeable wine drinker with a lot of disposable income, check out a few of these aged wines.

• A Portuguese winemaker tried aging some wine at the bottom of a lake for just a few months. The resulting wine tasted different (much better?) from the same batch of wine aged normally -- so maybe there will be more wine aged in lakes soon. [url]
• Bottles of wine found in centuries-old shipwrecks can fetch insane prices at auctions, and apparently the wine doesn't turn into vinegar. Wine aged in barrels under the sea seems to produce a better wine more quickly, so who's going to create a Kickstarter project for a water-filled wine storage cabinet? [url]
• Residue from ancient wine -- about 3,700 years old -- could provide hints into the early history of winemaking. The oldest known wine is about 5,000 years old, and it probably didn't taste that much like modern wine. [url]
• Not every old bottle of alcohol found in an old shipwreck turns out to be a winner. Some 170 year old champagne survived time and was still drinkable, but it wasn't exactly worth the wait. [url]

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Filed Under: alcohol, beverages, drinks, shipwrecks, taste, wine, winemaking

DailyDirt: How Sweet It Is?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We've been following diet fads for a while now -- and seeing how sugar (in various forms) has been blamed for health problems. Artificial sweeteners are supposed to help us avoid consuming too much sugar (and be more healthy in the balance), but it's probably not surprising that studies are starting to show that these alternatives to sugar also have their own side effects.

• Aspartame is being removed from Pepsi products, but it's still in thousands of other items that people eat and drink. Aspartame is one of the most studied food additives, and there isn't much evidence that it causes health problems such as cancer -- although phenylketonurics should stay away from it (as well as phenylalanine or anything that turns into phenylalanine). [url]
• Sucrose (aka table sugar) is a reference on the sweetness scale with a value of 1.0, and other natural sugars such as fructose can be a bit sweeter (1.1-1.8). Other naturally-occurring compounds like chloroform and stevia are orders of magnitude sweeter than sucrose, but you probably don't want to ingest chloroform. Lugduname is one of the sweetest compounds known, estimated to be over 200,000 times sweeter than sucrose, but it's not approved as a food additive (yet). People throughout history have been poisoned by sweet toxins (eg. lead acetate), but hopefully we'll avoid a similar fate. [url]
• Artificial sweeteners might reduce the calories a person consumes (depending on how much a person actually consumes), but these additives may also alter the microbiome in the digestive system, making some people less able to control blood sugar levels. It's still uncertain what the net effect of artificial sweeteners might be on any particular individual, but it's probably not as easy as you might think it is to eliminate all added sugar and artificial sweeteners from your diet. [url]

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Filed Under: artificial sweeteners, aspartame, diabetes, diet, food, food additive, lugduname, microbiome, phenylketonurics, stevia, sucrose, sugar, taste
Companies: pepsi

DailyDirt: Beverage Marketing At Its Highest... Altitudes?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Putting all sorts of things into space to see how they'll react in a micro-gravity environment has been done for decades now. Sometimes, it's really unpredictable what exactly will happen to stuff -- eg. will seeds exposed to space grow differently? But some things are not really too consequential. Do whisky drinkers really care if their favorite beverages are aged in space? Are astronauts allowed to get drunk on the International Space Station?

• Ardbeg Scottish whisky aged in space for 3 years has been tasted (finally!) by human beings, and it looks like space-aged whisky is somewhat nasty. Lots of fancy adjectives were used to qualitatively describe this whisky that we mentioned 3 years ago, but the aftertaste was "intense and long, with hints of wood, antiseptic lozenges and rubbery smoke" -- and "rubbery smoke" doesn't sound too appealing. [url]
• American whiskeys and bourbons have a history of tricky marketing tactics. Aging these alcoholic beverages or producing them in smaller quantities doesn't necessarily make them any better, and the name on the labels might not actually mean much beyond a "doing business as" moniker. [url]
• The Japanese distillery Suntory will be sending its own whisky to the International Space Station to "observe" the effects of aging its product in space. This probably isn't about the scientific exploration of whisky chemistry as much as it is marketing, but maybe someday, we'll see more ads with Bill Murray shot in space with more intensity. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: advertising, bill murray, bourbon, international space station, iss, marketing, microgravity, space, taste, whiskey, whisky
Companies: ardbeg, suntory

DailyDirt: Colorful Burgers Because Why Not?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Summer is here, and maybe you've already fired up the grill and cooked some burgers in the backyard. But why settle for plain old regular burgers when you could cook your own kinda disgusting-looking ones that are novelties in Asia? (You might need a little squid ink and bamboo charcoal.) Or you could visit Japan and just buy a strangely colored burger from Burger King or McDonald's. Too bad Heinz doesn't make goofy-colored ketchup anymore.

• Burger King Japan is going to sell bright red burgers in two varieties: Aka ("red") Samurai Chicken burgers and Aka Samurai Beef burgers. The red buns and red cheese will come from added tomato powder, and the ketchup will just be ketchup -- or red hot sauce made from miso and hot pepper. [url]
• Burger King also has an all black burger in Japan. It comes with black buns, black cheese and a black sauce -- not just black buns like the Darth Vader ("Dark Vador") burger offered by French fast food chain Quick a few years ago. The Kuro ("black") Pearl burger and Kuro Diamond burgers were first introduced in 2012 and have been offered in limited quantities ever since. [url]
• McDonald's Japan also sold a black burger it called the 'Squid Ink Burger' for a limited time around Halloween. It wasn't actually that black, though, and the cheese was just normal. McD's sold 'black and white' burgers in China in 2012, but unsurprisingly these burgers aren't permanent menu items. [url]

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Filed Under: black burger, burgers, colors, darth vader, flavor, food, ketchup, natural coloring, squid ink, taste
Companies: burger king, mcdonalds, quick

DailyDirt: All Natural Doesn't Necessarily Mean Good For You...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

A growing trend in food packaging seems to be using the words "all natural" to describe ingredients. This is meant to be an improvement over the previous "completely artificial" ingredients that have been used for decades. However, as some point out, the use of natural ingredients doesn't necessarily mean what consumers might think it means. Starbucks found out that "natural" might not satisfy all of its customers when it switched from Red #40 to a natural food coloring made from crushed insects. Those crushed insects aren't harmful, but that's not exactly what folks were expecting from a "natural" ingredient, either.

• Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (both owned by Yum Brands) have announced plans to get rid of artificial colors and flavors from their menu items. As an example, Taco Bell said it's going to stop using artificial black pepper flavor and use "natural black pepper flavor" -- but the company wouldn't disclose the exact difference between those ingredients. [url]
• Chipotle said it has gone GMO free (well, except for its drinks). The media coverage wasn't as glowingly positive as might have been expected, though. [url]
• Some food alarmists have been warning people that artificial strawberry and raspberry flavorings come from "beaver anal glands" -- but that's not exactly true. Castoreum is an extract from a beaver's organ located near -- but not from -- a beaver's butt, and this natural flavoring/fragrance isn't widely used in foods because it's actually too expensive to be economical in many food products. [url]

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Filed Under: artificial, castoreum, coloring, flavoring, food, fragrance, gmo, natural, taste
Companies: chipotle, pizza hut, starbucks, taco bell, yum brands

DailyDirt: Drink No Wine Before It's Time?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Some folks are really into aged spirits -- as in old alcohol, not ancient ghosts. But if we can't really trust our tastebuds, will anyone really know if an aged wine is really aged? More importantly, though, does it really matter if no one can taste the difference between a day-old beverage and one that's 15 years old? Maybe some wine/scotch snobs will care, but most drinkers probably won't.

• Chemistry can make a 6-day old rum taste like one that is 20 years old. The method is patented, but knockoffs are springing up -- and presumably, almost "anyone can do it" (well, if anyone really wants to make their own rum, that is). [url]
• Making pear-in-the bottle brandy is a tradition that dates back to the 1700s. It takes a few months for a tiny pear to grow inside a clear glass bottle, and then the fruit is cut from the tree, washed and covered with year-old brandy. It might be difficult to get this process done more quickly. [url]
• The scotch industry has previously marketed its products based on prominent years of aging -- even though age is an imprecise measure of quality. To keep up with demand, more and more scotch makers are selling no-age (or age-free) products that try to promote quality over age. [url]

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Filed Under: alcohol, beverages, brandy, drinks, rum, scotch, taste

DailyDirt: Can't Trust Your Tastebuds

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Our senses can be fooled pretty easily. A blue dress can look like it's white. And if our eyes can be fooled so easily, our tastebuds don't really stand much of a chance. If someone tells you a bottle of wine is aged and expensive, it's not easy to disprove that assertion with a taste test. Here are just a few other ways to fool people's tastebuds.

• Jimmy Kimmel regularly tricks unsuspecting people for his late night talk show, and one of his pranks includes setting up an organic juice taste test that actually gives people samples of beverages such as Skittles blended in water, melted Creamsicles, Tang or Fun Dip dissolved in water. When people think they're drinking a natural/organic juice, they'll tell you it's fresh and not too sweet or sugary -- even when it's basically sugar and water with artificial flavors. [url]
• People who attend commercial food conferences might not be food experts when it comes to telling the difference between a McDonald's meal and an organic alternative to fast food. McNuggets are definitely tasty, and who can tell what tastes "organic" anyway? If you tell people it's organic, they'll believe it's organic. [url]
• Plating high end cuisine is an art that can make almost any food look a bit more appetizing. It's amazing how good a sliced up hot pocket with ranch dressing blobs can look. [url]

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Filed Under: food, jimmy kimmel, prank, senses, taste, tastebuds
Companies: mcdonald's

DailyDirt: No More Pure Chocolate

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Most folks like chocolate, but there are a few weirdos out there who don't. Sometimes, chocolate is used to mask the flavor of stuff that's good for you (like vitamins or minerals), but for the most part, chocolate lovers want to keep their chocolate free of adulterants. The supply of chocolate might have a hard time keeping up with the growing demand for it, so it could be difficult to preserve the exact same recipes for chocolate that we have now -- and there could be "vintage chocolates" on the market, sold like fine wines, someday. Here are just a few chocolate tidbits for the choco-philes/chocoholics out there.

• The cacao tree is susceptible to a variety of diseases and environmental threats, but there are different varieties of cacao that are more disease resistant, drought tolerant and productive. However, the flavor of the resulting chocolates could suffer, but consumers might not notice the gradual change in the taste of their favorite chocolates. [url]
• Would you eat chocolate with an anti-aging antioxidant ingredient that claimed to make your skin younger? A $54 box of Esthechoc chocolate contains polyphenols and astaxanthin -- ingredients that the chocolatier states have "clinically proven" benefits for your skin. Sounds like a great excuse to eat more chocolate, but it's probably not as effective as the marketing material implies. Who wants "just the skin" of a 30yo, anyway? [url]
• Chocolates from the UK are a bit different than some chocolates made in the US -- the first ingredient for many American chocolates is sugar, but it's milk across the pond. Also, due to a settlement between Hersey's and Let's Buy British Imports, certain UK chocolate brands won't make it to the US -- and vice versa. (And someday, we'll have more videos like this of people reacting to trying foreign foods.) [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: aging, antioxidants, astaxanthin, cacao, chocolate, esthechoc, flavor, food, gmo, taste
Companies: hershey

DailyDirt: Foodie Robots Getting More Distinguishing Palates

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Robots (humanoid or otherwise) don't really need to eat, but they could help us wetware-based beings eat better -- if we design machines to do so. It's a bit tricky, though, for robots to experience food the way we do. However, machines could help make food safer by identifying contaminants or make foods more consistent in quality by identifying components that are necessary, for instance, to make a fine wine as fine as people think it is. Here are a few bots that might beat humans at a food/drink identification contest someday.

• Mashgin is the name of a robot vision kiosk that can identify a plate of food in a few seconds (and act as an automated cashier in a high tech cafeteria.) Apparently, it can recognize the difference between a Fuji apple and a Honeycrisp, but will it also notice the shrinkage? [url]
• If you're a stickler for authentic Thai food, there's a robot that might be able to point you in the right direction when you're looking for a lunch spot. The Thai government funded an e-delicious machine to differentiate bad green Thai curry from... an authentic government standard version of green curry. Yum? [url]
• Spanish researchers at the Autonomous University of Barcelona have developed an electronic tongue that can identify beers with about 80% accuracy. The robot doesn't get drunk or tired and never gets sick of tasting beer, sorta like Homer Simpson eating donuts in hell. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: automation, beer, computer vision, e-delicious, foodies, mashgin, robot taster, robots, senses, taste, thai curry

DailyDirt: Artisanal Foods Are Automatically Awesome

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The price of a fancy meal often involves buying a story -- that the ingredients for the dishes were grown locally or picked fresh the same day or fed only grass or given free range of an outdoor plot of land. But sometimes the story behind expensive food-related items is a bit harder to justify. Would you pay more for water that was filtered a few more times than tap water? How about painstakingly sliced and heated bread? Here are just a few more artisanal items that might be a joke (or not).

• Artisanal ice is a thing now. Hand-cut completely transparent ice can be added to your cocktails for an additional price. These handcrafted 2 inch blocks of ice melt ever so slightly slower than regular ice cubes, so you might be able to enjoy your drinks for just a bit longer without diluting your beverage. Or you could just use chilled rocks. [url]
• If you take NYC tap water and zap it with some UV rays and ozone, wouldn't you think that water should taste different? Maybe it does, but the added processing doesn't make that water any safer or more healthy for you. [url]
• Artisanal air is bottled in small batches in San Francisco. The idea of an oxygen bar has been around for more than a few decades (if not centuries), but capturing ambient pressure air in a bottle to be inhaled in a time-shifted experience is... not always a joke. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: air, artisanal, fad, food, ice, ingredients, oxygen bar, taste, toast, water