Evolution for Bartenders

Abstract

![Figure][1] CREDIT: JAMES HARRIMAN While sipping a Bloody Mary at a party in graduate school, evolutionary biologist James Harriman had an idea. “Everyone has a different recipe for Bloody Marys, so there occur these little differences. Like someone says, ‘I want more hot sauce,’” he says. Harriman wondered whether such personal quirks evolve into popular cocktails much as mutations give rise to new species, through a sort of taste-based natural selection. So Harriman, now a visiting scientist at Cornell University, fired up a computer program for generating phylogenetic trees. Instead of genes, he plugged in the ingredients of 100 cocktails, taking vodka as the tree's common ancestor. The program divided cocktails into several distinct families—drinks based on champagne or Irish cream, for example, or punch bowl drinks—and served up a few surprises. A cocktail called 110 in the shade (lager and tequila) is “sort of the platypus of the drink family,” Harriman says, “because it has nothing in common with anything else.” A poster of the tree, which doubles as a mixology guide, is available online from ThinkGeek ([www.thinkgeek.com][2]). [1]: pending:yes [2]: http://www.thinkgeek.com