Color Talk Resources from Tales of the Cocktail

This seminar will examine color in spirits and in cocktail ingredients, from the history of naturally-derived colors (and how to use them today) to artificial coloring, to ways to remove color from cocktails and spirits.

Until the creation of synthetic dyes – a laboratory accident in the attempt to synthesize quinine – food and beverage dyes were naturally derived from materials including tree barks (oak bark used to dye curacao liqueur), minerals including copper and iron to make things green and blue (and often, toxic), and insects (kermes scale insects, later replaced by the New World discovery of Oaxacan cochineal). The first synthetic dye (mauve), derived from coal tar, gave way to dozens of others that ended up in food and drink, including most colored liqueurs today as well as those neon maraschino cherries. We’ll study the history of synthetic dyes and modern safety concerns (did you know red M&Ms were taken off the market for 11 years due to a cancer scare?), as well as touch upon how some spirits use different coloring in different countries. And of course we’ll talk about blue wine, because yuck.

These days there is a renewed interest in natural colorings for cocktails, with cochineal making the strongest comeback but bartenders using everything from beet powder to butterfly pea flower tea to annatto to alter the color of drinks and garnishes. We’ll talk through the options and pros and cons of using various natural colorings in your drinks at home and the bar.

We'll also study the most popular natural coloring in the spirits world: caramel that’s used in rum, whisky, and tequila, and other spirits. And finally, we’ll review ways to remove color from cocktails and spirits: by charcoal filtration as is done with aged rum and cristalino tequilas, and we’ll briefly touch on how milk washing works to filter color from cocktails.