Menu, Journal of Food and Hospitality Research Volume 7, 2018, Pages 3-9
The influence of thickness and carbonation on consumers’ perception of freshness in alcoholic beverages
Jérémy Roque**, Agnès Giboreau**, Anne-Cécile Brit**, Estelle Petit**, Claire Garrel* * Centre de Recherche Pernod Ricard, Créteil, France ** Institut Paul Bocuse Research Center, Ecully, France
DOI: https://doi.org/10.26048/jpnn-h663 Abstract: The perception of freshness has received consideration in consumer studies since it is generally perceived as pleasurable by consumers in food and beverage products and it may be expected to influence their purchase and consumption behavior. Online surveys and laboratory studies have shown that somesthetic parameters such as carbonation and fluid texture may contribute to the experience of freshness in soft drinks and alcoholic beverages. The experiment reported here aimed at investigating the influence of thickness and carbonation on the perception and judgments of freshness as well as the corresponding liking of alcoholic beverages in a real consumption context. The results revealed that carbonation (oral-somatosensory cues in this experiment) increases the intensity of the perceived freshness whereas thickness decreases it. Moreover, the sparkling cocktail that was perceived as the freshest was also the most appreciated. These results pave the way for further investigation on the respective contributions of the different perceptual features that may influence the perception of freshness as well as the various crossmodal interactions that come to play during the consumption of beverages
