Flavour Forecast – AI identifies current drink trends
The latest drink trends in July 2024 are now being forecasted by AI. Alcoholic beverage brand builder Diageo is using AI Palette to predict future trends for its new ‘Flavour Forecast’. The tool harnesses both artificial intelligence and machine learning to track the trends being discussed across digital platforms. It identified five up-and-coming flavour styles – umami universe, spicy spark, tropical takeover, treating temptation, and bloom harvest. Diageo predicts these styles will see flavours like guava, jalapeno, chilli, turmeric and tamarind increasingly used across cocktails and other beverages.
Latest launches – New savoury, sweet, and healthy seltzer drinks
Spicy flavours have been used by New Amsterdam in its latest release. Heat Check is a hot pepper-flavoured vodka giving flavours from serrano, fresno and habanero peppers.
Shake Shack has a new savoury flavoured drink too. Its boozy Carbonara Shake combines frozen vanilla custard with Bourbon, sea salt and malt and is topped with a swirl of egg yolk, whipped cream, black pepper and crispy bacon bits. This collaboration with Bar Leone, available in Hong Kong, is one of many new ‘dinner in a drink’ creations – as we report on below.
Elsewhere, Strongbow is seeking to attract new drinkers with its latest launch, a Strawberry Cider, while 7-Eleven is also using fresh fruit flavours. The convenience store’s new Peach Candy Lemonade Slurpee blends sweetness and tartness, inspired by Gummy Peach Rings.
Postgame Beverages has launched four flavours of electrolyte seltzers. Available in fresh flavours including Cucumber Mint, these are just 4.4% ABV and are infused with 400mg of electrolytes.
Celebrity serves – Footballer creates new functional drink
Lionel Messi is the latest superstar to put his name to a drink. The footballer’s drink, Más+, is a functional creation blending electrolytes, vitamins and minerals to offer ‘proper hydration’. It will be available this summer in four flavours, including Punch and Lemon Lime, launching first across the US with other global markets to follow.
Celebrities ranging from sport stars to popstars are partnering with drinks brands or manufacturers to combine their global influence and beverage knowhow. At Simpson’s Beverages, we can support brands to develop these drinks.
Dinner in a drink – Savoury flavour inspiration for cocktail trends
Shake Shack’s new Carbonara Shake is one of many exciting and unique umami beverages. While there’ll always be a sweet spot for sugary drinks on menus, savoury creations are increasingly popular, allowing drinkers to be adventurous and indulgent. These go beyond simply adding spices or fat-washed ingredients, instead offering whole ‘dinner in a drink’ creations. The flavour combinations and cuisines being used offer inspiration for new flavoured RTDs, spirits or syrups.
European cuisines are being drawn on by mixologists to create familiar, food-based cocktails. British fare is being recreated in meaty, warming cocktails thanks to fat washing, like Three Little Words’ Steak & Ale Pie Margarita. The Manchester bar’s cocktail is made using a beef fat washed tequila, mezcal and Cointreau blend and is served with a gravy salt rim.
French flair and techniques are being used for sophisticated savoury cocktails – like the blue cheese cocktail, combining Bourbon with a blue cheese and honey pepper syrup, served in Jefrey’s Cocktail Bar in Paris. Barcelona bar Two Smucks was ahead of the curve of this current drink trend when it created a French Soup Manhattan in 2022.
Comforting Italian ingredients make for rich but recognisable savoury cocktails. An Italian Instagrammer shared their Gimlet-style caprese, combining tomato, basil and mozzarella flavours with a side of Bloody Mary.
Mediterranean flavours are also being derived from Greek dishes. Zzura bar in Hong Kong has a Greek Salad gin cocktail, using tomato, bell pepper, basil, olive, and cucumber flavours.
Flavours from further afield globally suit the adventurous drinkers too.
Asian cuisines are increasingly popular for dishes and drinks alike – like garam masala syrups and ghee-washed or herb-infused spirits for a taste of India, and soy sprays or wasabi distillate giving the umami flavours made popular by traditional Japanese meals. For more mainstream Asian flavour, Wagamama has already added a Pad Thai Sour to its drink menu, a fusion of vodka and rum spiced with lime, lemongrass and tamarind.
Flavours from across the Americas are being worked into cocktails too. Lucky7 bar in Birmingham has a Cali Roll cocktail, inspired by the US’s love for the sushi rolls, while Ceviche Sours honour both the dishes and spirits so loved in Latin America. And growing interest in African cuisines is seeing spices like suya and berbere added to savoury cocktails too.
Go veggie – vegetable cocktail trends
Building on the savoury-flavoured cocktail trend is the use of earthy vegetable flavours for drinks. Since botanicals and herbs have become more mainstream in drinks, it follows that mixologists have sought out other fresh ingredients. Vegetables can offer new elements to drinks like extra fibre, added health benefits and, of course, different flavours. This veggie trend also aligns with other current drink trends around sustainability, health and wellness.
Root vegetables like beetroot and carrot are lending their colours and notes to imaginative cocktails. Rascal bar in Glasgow uses a salted beetroot juice alongside banana rum and tonka bean liqueur in one of its cocktails, for example. And while carrot margaritas and mimosas aren’t entirely new, the same earthy-sweet flavour can lend itself to liqueurs and syrups too, suiting seasonal creations or emulating rich carrot cake flavours, perhaps.
Green veggies like peas and cucumbers offer fresh, neutral flavour bases. In London, Fitz’s Russell Square bar uses a sugar snap pea spirit in cocktails while Acme Fire Cult has a pod pea vodka on the menu. Over in Thailand, cucumber syrup softens a blend of gin, mezcal and elderflower liqueur in a Cucumber Salad Cocktail.
Vegetable cocktail trends also encompass the botanicals drinkers might not even think of as veggies, too. Bell peppers – which, botanically, are fruit – are being used to give a fresh twist to syrups, sodas, flavoured spirits, cordials and waters – like a homemade yellow bell pepper rum shared on Instagram by @cheerstohappyhour. And for the ultimate umami flavours, sea vegetables like seaweed and kelp are being used for salty, savoury and sustainable goodness in drinks. Specialist bar Hacha, in London, uses a sea moss tincture in one of its cocktails, for example.
All these flavours can be recreated for new and unusual cordials, syrups or spirits.
Capitalise on current drink trends
At Simpson’s Beverages, as a drinks manufacturer we develop bespoke flavours for drinks. As leaders in the science, art and innovation of drinks flavours our knowledge, experience and expertise allows our customers to launch drinks with the trendiest or newest flavours.
Image source: Trendhub The Food People 2024
