Top tips for in flight drinking

 For many a mid-flight drink is a time-honoured tradition that not only signals the start of a holiday but your cue to relax.

However there is an art to enjoying an in-flight tipple, and to getting the most out of your drink at 35,000 feet.

From changing altitudes disrupting our palates to the lack of cocktail menu on board, we round up our top tips for overcoming the difficulties faced by imbibers at altitude.

Please drink responsibly and remember that it is a criminal offence to be drunk while on board an aircraft.

Pre-flight fuel

You’ve checked in your bags, the boarding cards are safely stowed away and your work emails are firmly switched off; it’s time to start your holiday. While airports can be hectic places, many play host to a variety of bars and restaurants that provide a suitable send off to the jet set.

Heston Blumenthal’s The Perfectionists’ Cafe at terminal 2 in Heathrow is just one of the many restaurants offering up top-notch food and drink. As well as an intriguing nitrogen ice cream parlour, it also boasts a healthy selection of wines, beers, spirits and innovative cocktails, including the Bramble, which is served with a glass full of Merlot-scented vapour.

Forget below-par pastries and an overpriced bottle of coke, scope out the dining options on offer at your outbound airport to ensure you holiday gets off to a good start. Check out our top 10 airport restaurants and bars for some inspiration.

Don’t bring your own booze

Laws against bringing your own booze on board have long existed in the UK, with passengers only allowed to consume alcohol purchased in the airport or on board permitted. While 100ml liquids are permitted, any alcohol will be confiscated at security.

This rule was take a step further by Ryanair earlier this year when it banned passengers from taking duty-free alcohol onboard flights from the UK to Ibiza to improve the “comfort and safety” of passengers and crew.

Any alcohol purchased by passengers prior to their flight must now be stored in the hold or disposed of at the gate, the airline said in an email sent to passengers explaining the ban. The ban followed an increase in antisocial behaviour on board by Brits travelling to the Spanish party island.

While well-known to most frequent flyers, don’t expect to take any alcohol purchased outside of the airport in your hand luggage. Earlier this year two men were stopped at a Chinese airport with a bottle of snake wine. Unable to take the booze on board, the men downed a whole bottle not wanting to waste the expensive booze, which they believed to have medicinal and aphrodisiac properties. The lesson? Check in your booze.

Age restriction

While there is technically no age restriction on buying alcohol while in the air, individual airlines operate their own rules, almost always sticking to the laws of the country in which they are registered.

If you are flying on a US plane, don’t expect to be served unless you are 21. Likewise, if you are from the US and under 20, but flying on a British Airways plane, expect that you will be served.

As soon as you are on the ground, the laws of that country apply.

Pace yourself

Drinking at 30,000 feet can feel a little more heady than on land. That is because low air pressure can thin the blood, which alcohol can have a bigger effect in the air than on land, according to the UK’s flight regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

Generally, one drink in the air is equal to three on land, but this has been widely disputed. Others believe you feel more drunk when drinking at altitude simply because less oxygen is travelling to your brain.

Whatever the reason, its not advisable to over do it on a flight, not least because it is a criminal offence to be drunk on board an airplane. Cabin crew can refuse to serve passengers.

Carry on Cocktails

A simple spirit and mixer might suit some, but if you want to up the ante pick up one of these nifty Carry On Cocktail kits, designed for whipping up an innovative serve no matter what your altitude.

Three kits are available allowing you to whip up either an Old Fashioned, Moscow Mule or classic Gin and Tonic mid flight. The Old Fashioned kit contains a recipe card, linen coaster, stainless steel stirrer, sugar and aromatic bitters, enough to make two cocktails. Alcohol must of course be purchased on board.

The Carry On Cocktails Kit retails at $24.00, or you could just bring your own accessories to make up your own cocktail in style.

 Know your airlines

A lot of effort has gone into capitalising on demand for booze mid-flight in recent years with several airlines upping their wine and spirits offerings, particularly for its first class passengers.

While most of us are beholden to the cheapest ticket, without having the luxury of being able to pick a preferred airline, it can be worth scoping out the inflight food and drink offerings of different airlines, particularly if flying long haul. The standards, both in economy and business class, can vary considerably from one airline to the next.

American Airlines announced earlier this year that it was spending heavily on upping the quality of the wines they offer to their first class passengers, while United Airlines announced it would be offering free food and drink to its passenger on select international flights.

However Emirates and Singapore Airlines still lead the pack in terms of luxury, with Dom Pérignon on pour in first class. Late last year Emirates announced that it had spent US$500 million in “long-term investment” in its fine wine programme over the last decade. The carrier has said it been buying  wines en primeur and keeping them up to a decade before they are ready to be consumed in a cellar it owns in Burgundy – which apparently holds 1.2m bottles already.

Be aware of your changing palate

Ken Chase, American Airlines Wine Consultant

Fine wine in-flight is great, but it loses its appeal if you can’t experience its full quality. It’s a well known fact that your sense of smell, and therefore taste, is impaired at high altitude, making food and drink taste different. While there is still a lot of work to be done to understand why this is, the combination of a lack of humidity and low air pressure is one of the most accepted causes. As a plane climbs higher, the air pressure and humidity levels drop. At about 30,000 feet humidity is less than 12%, drier than most deserts.

This combination of low air pressure and humidity lowers our perception of saltiness and sweetness by around 30%, according to a 2010 study conducted by Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics, commissioned by German airline Lufthansa. The study interestingly found that sour, bitter and spicy flavours remained unaffected.

Generally, wines taste thin, tannic and acidic in flight compared to drinking them on the ground. This affect has prompted airlines to generally select wines that are fruity with low acid and low tannin. Airlines spend a great deal of time curating wine lists, taking into account how wines will taste at high altitude. Ken Chase oversees this process for American Airlines, tasting dozens of wines mid-flight and selecting only the best for the airline’s menu to ensure they perform at high altitudes.

Taking all of this into account, it’s generally better to drink at the beginning of a flight, before when you palate still holds some of its original perception.