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Slideshow
The world’s most divisive drinks
There are certain drinks that divide opinion whenever they are consumed or discussed: ‘Marmite’ wines and spirits that you either love or hate.
The drinkers that love them are unapologetic evangelists for the styles, while the haters simply can’t understand why anyone would waste their time with thoughts of adding them to the drinks cabinet.
Scroll through for a pick of our top ‘Marmite’ drinks…
Dry sherry
Setting aside all the jokes about granny’s bottle of dry sherry gathering dust in the back of the cupboard, Fino and other dry sherry styles are still not for everyone.
Even properly chilled, freshly-bottled and recently opened, the tangy, bone dry and nutty complexity of a dry sherry, with plenty of hints of the flor yeast that gives a Fino its particular character, can just be a turn-off to many drinkers.
Perhaps it’s the fact that so many elements of the flavour are coming from a biological yeast action, compared to the other forms of oxidative ageing that offer a more mellow and rounded flavour profile to a wine.
Bitters
Whether it’s Jagermeister, Fernet Branca or Unicum there’s no doubt these are successful drinks brands but for many it’s hard to shake off their medicinal origins.
Fernet Branca is, for many, closer to childhood memories of cough mixture than the idea of a pleasant digestif. The human brain is also conditioned to regard bitter tastes as suspicious and potentially hazardous – it’s one reason why children don’t generally like bitter foods.
Argentina is bucking the statistics, though, with a trend for mixing Fernet with Coke and serving on ice – a neat combination of two drinks that began life in the chemist’s shop or drugstore, and for some should probably have stayed there. Argentina now consumes over 75% of global production of Fernet Branca.
Fernet’s secret recipe brings together at least 40 different herbs including saffron, rhubarb, cardamom, myrrh, chamomile, aloe and gentian root.
Peated malt whiskies
Whether it’s Laphroaig, Lagavulin, or Big Peat – even if you like malt whisky, that peated extreme might be a step too far.
For many, the rich, smoky, phenolic flavours of a well-peated malt are a thing of joy – all about reminiscences of sea air, bonfires and more.
For others, the peaty blast is an unwelcome addition to an otherwise great drink.
Peatiness in whisky can be measured by the level of phenols – compounds measured in parts per million (ppm) that are formed in the malted barley during the drying process.
An unpeated malt like Bruichladdich might have just 7-8 ppm, while a more challenging peated malt such as Laphroaig, Lagavulin or Big Peat might be between 35 and 45 ppm.
In a whole different league, and with a big warning sign for the peat haters, is Bruichladdich’s Octomore, advertised as “the world’s most heavily peated whisky series”. Different releases vary in power, but the peatiest version comes in at a whopping 208 ppm.
Warm bitter
The butt of many an Australian joke about dismal Pommy practices, the idea of serving beer at anything but a glacial temperature is anathema to many.
It’s a bit of a negative stereotype though. It’s never really served warm, just at cellar temperature, roughly 11-13 degrees centigrade, but it’s certainly not chilled to the point where the condensation forms around the glass.
The theory goes that the lighter the beer, the cooler it should be served. Classic English bitter falls into the category that ideally should be served a bit warmer than your average lager or hipster IPA.
So if you don’t like a beer without a frost of condensation on the glass, you probably aren’t a CAMRA member either.
Natural wines
Little is more guaranteed to start a storm in a wine glass than a discussion about natural wine.
Fans will point to its, well, natural credentials, with little use of the preservative sulphur dioxide and a minimal intervention in the winemaking process.
However, there are plenty of those who think these practices take the ‘wine’ a long way from what they normally expect from a grape-based beverage, and nudge it a lot closer to the flavours you might expect from a cider or a beer.
Even some wine writers and merchants have joined the broadside, claiming that natural wines are too indulgent of wine faults and presenting them as positive characteristics. They also claim that such faults mask the underlying characteristics of grape variety and regional character.
Yet, fans of natural wine will say that it’s this lack of additives and natural ‘wild’ fermentation that are the true tradition that can allow the expression of a wine’s sense of place and origin.
Herbal liqueurs
Kummel, Chartreuse and Benedictine are all part of a category of drinks that detractors will see only as the remnants of ill-judged holiday purchases, destined to languish at the back of a cupboard.
Infused with herbs and spices in traditional ways that have changed little for generations, they’re often associated with monastic communities and traditional (perhaps a euphemism for older) consumers.
The herbal character is not as ‘in your face’ as the bitters category already mentioned, but the distinctive flavours can be demanding.
As ever, these traditional drinks often perform best when enjoyed in their native habitat.
Benedictine was originally created as an elixir to sustain the monks as they worked – so it must have some good points.
Sake
In some ways close to the dry sherry problem … lovers of this rice-based delight will certainly tell you that you just haven’t tried the good stuff yet.
Diminished in the eyes of many by early experiences of tepid sake in cheap sushi restaurants, the sector actually offers a whole range of different style and flavour profiles.
Yet the more widely available examples can present a difficult experience for the average drinker, with hints of cheap sherry and a slightly viscous, glycerol-esque edge.
Alcohol-free beer
Plenty of beer aficionados would rather just drink water than descend to the horrors of alcohol-free beer. However, it’s a burgeoning category.
Market leader Beck’s Blue, with 58% of the non-alcoholic beer market in the UK, grew 15% in the off-trade and 10% in the on-trade in 2015, driven by an apparent desire for healthier lifestyles amongst younger drinkers.
The brewers of Beck’s Blue, AB InBev, say that by 2025, 20% of the beer it sells will be lower-alcohol or alcohol-free, so you’d better get used to it.
Beyond the feeling that removing the alcohol simply takes away the fun from beer, detractors of alcohol-free lager point to the stripped out flavours that the de-alcoholising process traditionally delivered.
Poorer examples can have a rather cardboardy, old bread and sweet malt flavour that’s not balanced by other redeeming features, but production methods are improving, and as popularity rises, the demand for better flavour delivery grows with it.
And finally… more reading
From a herbal elixir created by Carthusian monks to bitters invented to cure tropical diseases, we round up the top 10 drinks lauded for their medicinal value.
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