Inside Manska’s Mind: Sensory Science Changes Spirits’ Appreciation—What have you been missing?
The common tulip glass shape has been around since the late 1700s as the “dock” trade verification glass for sherries and ports.
Popularity increased in the 1800-1900s as a result of Great Britain’s worldwide sherry and port trade. Tulips are characterized by a rim diameter smaller than the maximum bowl diameter. The convenience of the tiny, single-serving sherry/wine tulip glass, readily available in every drinking household, inspired its adoption for scotch whisky, and it’s usage spread to include most spirits. Today tulips are preferred by the majority of spirits drinkers worldwide for drinking, tasting, evaluating, and judging spirits.
In 2012, along comes Arsilica, Inc. a beverage sensory research company in Nevada, performing sensory studies to examine a simple problem which has been overlooked for decades, but finally rears its head as consumers become more eager to discover the flavor qualities of well-crafted spirits.
Problem Description: Decades of whiskey drinkers have been conditioned by tulips designed for 22% ABV (alcohol by volume) fortified wines. 40%+ ABV spirits in a 22% glass creates a nose bomb. Most drinkers believe ethanol cannot be separated from other aromas and drink for the ethanol, not the spirit. Eth-heads depend on critics, authors, and whiskey gurus who prefer traditional tulips with little knowledge of sensory science to tell them what flavors they may enjoy. Purchasing decisions are influenced by marketing suggestions and ads, not personal preference. Most become label buyers, equating price, high ABV, and scarcity with high quality. They believe tiny rim tulips collect all aromas when they actually collect massive amounts of pungent, anesthetic ethanol which masks aromas and flavors. Numbed, drinkers easily adopt subliminal marketing suggestions to define what they cannot smell and is hidden behind an ethanol mask..
The Solution: Flavor = 90% aroma + 5% taste + 5% mouthfeel. Adding a “neck” to the glass forces molecules closer together, imparts higher expansion velocities to lower mass aromas. Overabundant, lowest-mass ethanol moves quickly to the rim edge, leaving behind high-mass, complex character aromas for easy detection, while the flared rim controls aroma expansion, completely unmasking, retaining, and displaying all aromas for accurate olfactory detection, identification, and quality assessment. This innovative glassware is called NEAT, an acronym for Naturally Engineered Aroma Technology.
The Official Glass for Spirits Competitions: Olfactory fatigue is the biggest problem with competitions who judge multi-sample flights. Unfortunately, tulips destroy ratings for entrants evaluated late in flights of 4 or more samples. Ethanol increasingly and unknowingly numbs judges’ noses (nose-blindness), deteriorating their ability to detect, identify, and discriminate aromas, the 90% contribution to flavor. NEAT eliminates nose-blindness and levels the playing field, giving all entrants a fair chance at attaining ratings commensurate with quality. NEAT is the official spirits competition judging glass for 40+ events annually, with those events placing evaluation accuracy as highest priority.
NEAT for Serious Spirits Lovers: Purchasing decisions are placed back in the hands of drinkers, away from marketers’ suggestions. Self-discovery, personal choice, and gender equity for more sensitive female noses are finally addressed. NEAT’s future as a “go-to” glass depends on drinkers’ desire to seek spirits’ subtle nuances and flavors over the instant gratification provided by strong ethanol.
Cask Strengths: Cask strengths contain less water (hydrogen bonding), therefore more intense flavor profiles. However, since high ethanol works against olfactory, cask strengths in tulips quickly numb the nose while subtler flavors and aromas go undetected and unappreciated. Most cask strength drinkers are infatuated with higher ethanol and do not care about aromas and flavor.
Summary: For most drinkers the decision to remain in the tulip glass camp is simple. Tulips are the iconic symbol and identity badge of fraternal recognition and bonding for all spirits drinkers. To simpler minds, moving ethanol away from the nose wasn’t discovered and implemented long time ago, so it’s probably fake news; the world stops for them at the tulip. The problem is more complex, as no one can pinpoint the exact moment at which their olfactory begins to deteriorate, and very few are even aware of its occurrence. Silent and stealthy, powerful ethanol rules olfactory. Everyone benefits as NEAT (1) opens new avenues for the spirits industry to meet consumer needs with sensory expressions, (2) improves consumers’ perception and meaningful purchasing decisions, and (3) provides competitions with an accurate diagnostic tool to enhance primary objectives – presenting true aroma and flavor profiles, aiding honest assessments and ratings.
Using the NEAT glass requires familiarity, as the wide lip can spill when “throwing back” the contents, as common with tulips. Slowly sipping NEAT is all about appreciating, enjoying, and accurately evaluating spirits to determine character and quality rather than forcing copious amounts of ethanol into the nasal passages to achieve a quick contact high in the name of tradition. Become a serious spirits drinker and get more sensory understanding and appreciation for all spirits with NEAT. Take control of your purchasing decisions by changing glassware or continue buying because you are motivated by cute marketing and subliminal suggestion.
About George Manska
George is an entrepreneur, inventor, engine designer, founder, Chief R&D officer, Corporate Strategy Officer, CEO Arsilica, Inc. dedicated to sensory research in alcohol beverages. (2002-present). He is the inventor of the patented NEAT glass, several other patented alcohol beverage glasses for beer and wine, (yet to be released). Director ongoing research into aromatic compound behavior, and pinpointing onset of nose-blindness. George is a professional consultant for several major spirits competitions, has been published in the MDPI Beverage Journal Paper, is the founder or member of over seven different wine clubs for the past fifty years, is a collector of wines and spirits, has traveled the world, and is an educator and advisor of multiple spirits sensory seminars.
George F Manska, CR&D, Arsilica, Inc. Engineer, inventor of the NEAT glass, sensory science researcher, entrepreneur.
Mission: Replace myth and misinformation with scientific truth through consumer education.
Contact: george@arsilica.com, phone 702.332.7305. For more information: www.theneatglass.com/shop
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