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Subject: Re: Spirits and Colour
From: apetail
Posted: Fri Jan 16. 2009, 16:11 UTC
Followup to: "Spirits and Colour"  by Godiva  (Fri Jan 16. 2009, 02:54 UTC)
> I am wondering if anyone has a list of Spirit with their colour (or 
> some other way of showing the different spirits by colour). I am 
> trying to make a shot with a very specific colour and would like this 
> information.
> 
> Godiva

I have this list in my head but I won't try to attempt to write it down. The 
list is too large. The difficulty with such lists (there already exist many on 
the web) is that they would also have to match the spirits available to a 
person. A list must be specifically made for some person, area, or taste. 
Otherwise it would be impractically long and complex.

Another peculiar thing about spirits is that all spirits start as a white 
liquid. The colour is either from extraction or addition of flavouring 
materials. More often however they are artificially coloured and the colour 
has not really a strong relation with the spirit flavour except for it being 
associated with the spirit. In that case the colour is not a physical aspect 
of the spirit but instead a psychological aspect. 

Categorisation according to colour becomes difficult due to the weak link 
between colour and other aspects of a spirit. Because of that you don't want 
to make a general list (so please be more specific). Four examples:

Sloe gin is always red because of the addition of sloes. Sloe gin can easily 
be categorised as being red. 

However, already something as common like whisky is often regarded, by most of 
the people, as being brown. But it isn't and you don't need to look hard to 
see this. Many variations of whisky exist and there can easily be found 
yellow, green and pale coloured whiskies as well. The brown colour of whisky 
is often mostly due to added caramel. 

With whisky the brown colour is somewhat related to the flavour. A colour may 
also have nothing to do at all with the flavour. People often associate 
vanilla with yellow and vanilla spirits are often coloured yellow because of 
that. However, vanilla is a black substance and won't produce a saturated 
yellow colour when being extracted. Because of that categorisation of vanilla 
liqueurs (e.g. Liquor 43 and Galliano) is not that easy. This is even more 
strong with spirits like Blue Curacao, Parfait Amour or Hpnotic. You may 
categorise some spirit as being a certain colour but another brand might 
easily produce the same kind of spirit in a different colour.

Finally, some classifications may be confusing. E.g. Galliano often seen as 
the yellow herbal vanilla liqueur, has also been a liqueur brand producing 
things like white sambucca and brown amaretto.


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