Study Claims Atmosphere Influences Whiskey Taste

A recent study has concluded that multi-sensory environmental factors play
an important role in how consumers perceive the taste of whiskey. Carlos
Velasco, et al., “Assessing the influence of the multisensory environment on
the whisky drinking experience,” Flavour, October 2013. Oxford University
researchers apparently asked 441 volunteers to sample the same glass of
whiskey while visiting each of three rooms engineered to evoke the smell
of grass, the taste of sweetness and the texture of wood. Participants then
reportedly rated the whiskey as (i) being grassier on the nose when they
visited the room decorated with artificial turf and infused with the smell
of fresh-cut grass and the sounds of sheep, (ii) tasting sweet when they
visited the room with a sweet scent that was also awash with red light and
high-pitched “tinkling” sounds; and (iii) having a woody aftertaste when
they visited the room decorated like a cedar forest. The study also noted
that participants generally preferred the taste of the whiskey in the wooded
“finish” room.

“That was kind of the genius of the thing, that they carried just one glass,”
explained a study co-author in an October 13, 2013, NPR article. “What struck
people when they were coming out of the woody, final room, was that they
could look back at their scorecard and see that they’d been given the very
same drink in the other hand a very different rate, and they knew that all that
had changed was that they had walked from one room to another.”