E150a Experiment

This is the brainchild of Johanne McInnis, aka @Whiskylassie and one half of The Perfect Whisky Match Blog. 

The idea originated way back in February, when Johanne, who has a  background in chemistry, announced her intentions on our Whisky Bloggers Facebook page,  after reading an article on the Whisky Science blog. Johanne asked for ten interested bloggers to step forward. Overwhelmed by the response the number of participants has increased to around two dozen of us now.

Johanne got hold of some E150a from an undisclosed source that works in the "brewing" industry, and then went out to purchase two identical bottles of known naturally coloured whisky from her local liquor store. Then based on a equation and information from a distillery "source", Johanne calculated how much of the colourant to add. One of the two bottles has 1.2g/700ml or roughly 1 drop of Caramel for every 15ml of Whisky.

These formed the basis of the kits that have been sent worldwide. Each kit also included a small vial of neat E150a and a small pipette so we too could conduct our own experiments, and I will be trying this again later.

I'll start this post with a brief introduction from Johanne:

The majority of single malts and virtually all the blends from Scotland are coloured with E150a. The SWA regulation of 2009 states that “plain caramel" (E150a) is allowed. HOWEVER, this is just a guideline. In fact, UK and EU laws permit the use of their definition which is “spirit caramel”. Which means any of the four caramels E150a-d can be used by the distillery.

Four different types (a-d or from class I to IV).

E150a (distiller’s caramel) is made by a process involving a controlled heat treatment of a carbohydrate. Mostly used are glucose, syrups, sucrose and/or dextrose. Although each manufacturer protects their trademark, most use the same process which involves adding acids or bases to promote the caramelization of the CH (carbohydrate) compound. This colouring agent is used in very small quantities. Fructose based E150a produces the darkest range of colours. It starts to caramelise at 110C. E150a is the most stable of caramels as it can tolerate high ABV’s (75%) and it is also the most resistant to fading.

How much do they use?  Again, it seems to be a guarded secret with most distilleries however on average we know it’s about 1.0 – 5.0 grams/Litre (that translates to 0.1 – 0.5 %)

So the question was can you detect a difference in your whiskies?  You will clearly see there is a difference in the colour of the whisky but can you truly detect on the nose and/or palate in a blind taste test?   Let’s find out:

All set up ready to start the first E150a experiment - I can do science me!

First of all what does neat E150a smell and taste like? You can see the small black bottle in the photo above, with the pipette alongside it. I can assure you that the glass vial is clear. The E150a liquid is a rich, viscous dark brown in colour, has the smell of burnt sugar, almost carbon like, the burnt sugar carbon note is clear on the palate too, and it starts to leave a bitter after-taste in the mouth, similar to the pith of a grapefruit, but a little more more unpleasant. 

A single drop in a glass of water is enough to make it look like a glass of whisky is in my hand. In hindsight, perhaps it would have been better to had  properly nose and taste the E150a first before conducting the tests, as it was I rushed headlong into conducting the blind whisky tasting tests without actually establishing what I would be looking for!

With shrouds constructed for the two nosing glasses and my youngest daughter in control of monitoring my blind tasting results, 10ml of each whisky was poured into separate nosing glasses. My first test took place in the afternoon. I correctly identified the darker whisky first time around, and to celebrate I pushed the boat out, had a cup of tea and a piece of cake. The second nosing occurred afterwards and I identified the incorrect whisky. Around thirty minutes later I revisited and was able to pick out the darker whisky correctly. The glasses were mixed up again for the taste test, and although I could detect a notable difference, I picked the sweeter whisky, which was incorrect.

The second test took place later the same evening, and interestingly finished a cup of tea before the first nosing and getting it wrong again. The next two nosing tests followed where I correctly identified the coloured whisky. I was still unable to pick the correct one on the taste test, choosing the sweeter tasting whisky again.

The final test took place the following morning, no tea in the morning for me this time, and I had a clear run through, identifying the coloured whisky by nosing correctly each time, and then picking the correct one on the taste test too. I think however by this third test I had learnt the differences and was able to correctly identify the taste immediately.

So what does this all mean? I haven't a clue apart from I am noticing a difference! I have questioned why brands feel it is necessary to colour whisky in some of my blog posts before,  as have previously been told that it is not noticeable.

The darker of the two samples smells richer, with more caramel flavours. The citrus notes are more lemon/lime in the lighter sample and more orange like in the darker sample.

However on the taste test the darker coloured whisky tasted bitterer - I was associating the darker richer notes found while nosing with the sweeter tasting whisky and was wrong on the first two taste tests. On the third taste test I remembered that the less sweet tasting whisky should be the coloured one and was correct.

The 'score sheet' from Whisky Discovery

And so concludes the results of the Whisky Discovery 'I can do Science Test'. My results have been sent off to our guru Johanne for collating and I'm looking forward to reading her blogpost on The Perfect Whisky Match once all the results have been analysed and her conclusion has been reached.

In the meantime, I will be 'doctoring' a small sample of naturally coloured whisky at home and repeating this experiment with Kat, more later!

All very orange! E150a samples being prepared in at The Perfect Whisky Match HQ