Why does my coffee sometimes taste alcoholic?

conorh91

Occasionally I buy coffee from a well-known high street franchise. (Coffee snobs, look away now. :P)

Sometimes, it tastes or smells like it contains a drop of whiskey. It's like very weak Irish coffee.

Any obvious reason why coffee can sometimes have this attribute?

I take milk and one sugar, if it makes a difference... or if anybody ever wants to buy me coffee.

evolving_doors

I'll bet the 'well known coffee street franchise' uses flavourings which you would pick up on when going into the shop (particularly when at the counter you'll see rows of the vanilla,banana,chocolate,raspberry tall bottles). I think this tricks your brain into thinking you are looking at the spirits section in a pub and associating the aromas with alcohol.

As you can see the composition of esters below ( sciency term for what makes flavours/smell ). Basically look for a few '-ols' at the end of the word e.g. Banana essence is associated with iso-amyl alcohol. I'm not saying that there is specifically iso-amyl in your coffee but just to be aware at how much the brain is tricking you and how complex flavours/smell/memories are.

Either that or they're spiking your drink. How bad.


science.pc.athabascau.ca_chem360.nsf_f8ba9a4e31825f6f87256b6700619e85_$FILE_360Exp10-02.pdf.jpg

BoltzmannBrain

~Interesting!

ScumLord

I've never had that with coffee, but sometimes my pint of lager tastes like weed.

evolving_doors

ScumLord wrote: »

I've never had that with coffee, but sometimes my pint of lager tastes like weed.

Hops (humuls) and Cannabis are from the same Cannabaceae family...allegedly.
There's an article here but I think he doesn't really get to the point.
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-11/beersci-marijuana-related-hops