Perception of Aqueous Ethanol Binary Mixtures Containing Alcohol-Relevant Taste and Chemesthetic Stimuli

Margaret Thibodeau,Gary Pickering

doi:10.3390/beverages7020023

Abstract

Ethanol is a complex stimulus that elicits multiple gustatory and chemesthetic sensations. Alcoholic beverages also contain other tastants that impact flavour. Here, we sought to characterize the binary interactions between ethanol and four stimuli representing the dominant orosensations elicited in alcoholic beverages: fructose (sweet), quinine (bitter), tartaric acid (sour) and aluminium sulphate (astringent). Female participants were screened for thermal taste status to determine whether the heightened orosensory responsiveness of thermal tasters (n = 21–22) compared to thermal non-tasters (n = 13–15) extends to these binary mixtures. Participants rated the intensity of five orosensations in binary solutions of ethanol (5%, 13%, 23%) and a tastant (low, medium, high). For each tastant, 3-way ANOVAs determined which factors impacted orosensory ratings. Burning/tingling increased as ethanol concentration increased in all four binary mixture types and was not impacted by the concentration of other stimuli. In contrast, bitterness increased with ethanol concentration, and decreased with increasing fructose concentration. Sourness tended to be reduced as ethanol concentration increased, although astringency intensity decreased with increasing concentration of fructose. Overall, thermal tasters tended to be more responsive than thermal non-tasters. These results provide insights into how the taste and chemesthetic profiles of alcoholic beverages across a wide range of ethanol concentrations can be manipulated by changing their composition.

Highlights

According to the Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health in 2016, 43% of individuals over the age of fifteen worldwide were current consumers of alcoholic beverages [1]
Alcohol misuse is associated with several negative health and social effects including increasing the risk of cancer, neuropsychiatric disorders, cardiovascular disease, digestive diseases and accidental injury/death [1,2]
As a result, understanding factors that impact alcohol consumption is important to reduce the harm associated with alcohol misuse, while providing valuable consumer information to the alcoholic beverage industry

Summary

Introduction

According to the Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health in 2016, 43% of individuals over the age of fifteen worldwide were current consumers of alcoholic beverages [1]. As a result, understanding factors that impact alcohol consumption is important to reduce the harm associated with alcohol misuse, while providing valuable consumer information to the alcoholic beverage industry. Individuals who are more responsive to both taste and chemesthetic sensations tend to report lower liking and consumption of alcoholic beverages than those less responsive. It is possible that this reduction in liking may be due to increased responsiveness to the nominally aversive sensations (bitterness, irritation, sourness and astringency) that are commonly elicited by alcoholic beverages (reviewed in [11]). Olfactory stimuli contribute to the flavour of alcoholic beverages, we have limited the scope of the current research to focus on taste (sweet, sour, bitter) and chemesthetic (astringent, burning/tingling) sensations

Methods

Results

Conclusion