How to Develop a Beverage

At the most basic level, flavour and beverage development is an extension of chemistry, but much like a painter doesn’t need to know the chemical makeup of their paints, you don’t need to delve deeply into chemistry to create a flavour, but it would help. Creating a flavour aroma is relatively easy, mix different aroma compounds together just like a painter would mix paints to get a new colour. The harder part is getting that aroma mixture into the form of a good-tasting beverage and that is where the chemistry aspects come into play.

I have kept the chemistry as simple as possible here, but the goal is to help you select appropriate aroma compounds for your application as well as how to handle more difficult compounds, like essential oils, and what the potential pitfalls are of using different compounds. It comes down to stability, because that provides consistency and when a person tries your product and enjoys it the first time they want that experience again. If your product is inconsistent, the user experience is poor, meaning your products will have a short existence. 

Good flavour and its stability are the two key pillars of good beverage development. And as you go through this course, remember that these two keys are equally important and each topic here is designed to educate you on how to achieve those two pillars. Though beverage development is a large topic that you could study for a lifetime, the focus here is on researching and creating “taster samples” and not necessarily commercialization, but the formulas you create with this information are ready to be taken to the next level.

Flavour stability comes down to good formulations and understanding things like solubility, density, and emulsions. A good flavour also requires experimentation, but it also an understanding how others perceive your creations because people have widely varying tastes. Understanding that will help you target specific markets for the flavours you create and those are the goals in this course when it comes to beverage development.

Finding information on flavour development can be difficult if you are looking beyond working with other companies’ products. Making your own unique flavours can be a fantastic way to create new experiences, whether that is as a bartender or someone wanting to produce their own beverage company.

Most products released on the market have the same flavours with new marketing. Developing a truly interesting product requires creativity. The most creative time for beverages in the last 20 years has been in the world of cocktails. Modern cocktails are the rare combination of interesting ingredients that create a unique flavour profile. They are not trying to recreate a fruit or known flavour, though they may take inspiration from these things.

Finding formulas for things is difficult because most flavour houses and developers consider this information their intellectual property, and rightly so, they developed the formulas. But they also keep a lot of information tightly controlled, making it harder for others to enter the industry. A background is chemistry is helpful, but as I’m going to show you, not necessary. In fact, if you are confident with your abilities to identify aromas and enjoy food and beverages, you will do fine. The core goal of any flavour development project is to create something people like, and that requires passion and interest. Getting a product to market requires some chemistry and regulatory understanding, but it is well within your reach to create stuff in the flavour space.

Your advantage is that you have a fresh mind with creative ideas that isn’t restricted by corporate governance and shareholder needs. Though most professional flavour developers consider exotic or fantasy flavours not analogous to any known flavour to be unacceptable or difficult to market to the public, this in not true today. I have experienced people expressing a high level of curiosity in the cocktails world; most of the flavours in modern cocktails are difficult to define but are still enjoyed immensely. The bitters class known as amari is distinctly unique and undefinable in flavour but highly prized. 

How do you define the flavour of a Manhattan beyond its base components of whisky and vermouth? The vermouth on its own is a completely unique flavour, and with some research and development, you could make equally unique and complex products.

For anyone in the food and beverage industry, including aspiring beverage creators, bartenders, writers, and chefs. Yes, writers and chefs. Writers who publish content about drinks and flavours should learn and understand how drinks are made. It will allow you to ask better questions and make more interesting content, not just regurgitate marketing material.