Assessing the influence of the multisensory environment on the whisky drinking experience

Abstract

Background: Flavor perception depends not only on the multisensory integration of the sensory inputs associated with the food or drink itself, but also on the multisensory attributes (or atmosphere) of the environment in which the food/drink is tasted. We report two experiments designed to investigate whether multisensory atmospheric cues could be used to influence the perception of a glass of whisky (that is, a complex but familiar product). The pre-test (experiment 1) was conducted in the laboratory and involved a sample of 18 participants (12 females, 5 males, and 1 who did not specify gender), while the main study (experiment 2) was conducted at a large purpose-designed whisky-tasting event held in London, and enrolled a sample of 441 participants (165 female, 250 male, and 26 who failed to specify their gender). In the main experiment, participants were exposed to three different multisensory atmospheres/rooms, and rated various attributes of the whisky (specifically the nose, the taste/flavor, and the aftertaste) in each room. Results: Analysis of the data showed that each multisensory atmosphere/room exerted a significant effect on participants' ratings of the attributes that the atmosphere/room had been designed to emphasize (namely grassiness, sweetness, and woodiness). Specifically, the whisky was rated as being significantly grassier in the Nose ('grassy') room, as being significantly sweeter in the Taste ('sweet') room, and as having a significantly woodier aftertaste in the Finish ('woody') room. Overall, the participants preferred the whisky when they tasted it in the Finish room. Conclusions: Taken together, these results further our understanding of the significant influence that a multisensory atmosphere can have on people's experience and/or enjoyment of a drink (in this case, a glass of whisky). The implications of these results for the future design of multisensory experiences are discussed.

Looking for crossmodal correspondences between classical music and fine wine

“…Now, while this certainly does not seem to have been the case for the sensory-discriminative attributes of the wine (see Table 1), it seemed possible that hedonic ratings (for example, of enjoyment) might be different (see also [26]) -especially given evidence concerning the mere exposure effect (for example, [49,50]). However, the results of the comparison between the first and second ratings of the fourth wine (the dessert wine), did not show any such significant effect (M = 5.48 on first tasting versus 5.60 on second tasting -thus only a very slight trend was observed in that direction).…”

“…and the higher level semantic judgments that people make about a wine's qualities (see [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][36][37][38][39][40][41][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51]). It would therefore be interesting in future research, to compare people's rating of a wine when the putatively matching music is played versus when mismatching music is played instead.…”

“…In addition, several other studies have now demonstrated that changing the music that happens to be playing in the background affects people's rating of everything from whisky ( [26]; see also [27]) through to a bittersweet chocolate dessert [28], and from gelato [29] through to functional and dietetic foods [30], not to mention beer [31][32][33]. What we hear, then, can exert a profound influence on what we taste -and no less importantly on what we think we taste (see [34], for a review).…”

Wine and music (III): so what if music influences the taste of the wine?

“…In fact, over the last 5 years or so, there has been something of an explosion of multisensory tasting events and/or apps designed to change people's perception of the taste of everything from coffee to cocktails ( [38,[110][111][112]) and from whisky to vodka as well (e.g. [59,113]). And, of course, once one has started down the road to multisensory experience design, there seems little reason to stop with just changing the music/soundscape.…”

“…That is, events where the attendees get to enjoy a multisensory tasting experience while, at the same time, contributing data to enhance our (and quite possibly their) knowledge in this area. See Spence et al [17,36], Velasco et al [59], and Wang and Spence [18] for a number of events of this type, together with the empirical/theoretical insights that were gained. It is, however, important to note that there are a number of challenges to bear in mind whenever attempting to conduct experiments in this space.…”