If you’re looking forward to a festive tipple this Christmas, you’ve probably already been thinking about what to buy. But have you also thought about what atmosphere to create while you’re drinking your purchases, or whether more expensive necessarily means more enjoyable?

我们回顾了三项研究，由查尔斯·斯文斯（Charles Spence）教授合着，并在味道，，，，to bring you a festive guide to enjoying your booze. (Responsibly of course!)

It isn’t all about the money

If, like me, you enjoy some bubbles on Christmas morning, or quite frankly at any time, then you’ll be pleased to know that even a more modestly-priced champagne can get expert taste buds tingling. In a小型研究published at the end of November, Professor Spence and his fellow authors found that there was no correlation between price and how much the participants in a blind taste test liked various different types of champagne. (Though the expert tasters were more able to discern the differences between them.)

Previous reports – which were part of the inspiration behind this study – suggested that when tasters didn’t know the price, brand or origin of the wine they were tasting, they rated the one they most liked as the most expensive. Once they knew the details of the wine, however, the perceived liking changed. So knowing that a wine is more expensive or from a particular region can actually enhance your perceived liking of it – a ‘price placebo effect’ if you will.

这一切让我想知道也许我们应该在香槟瓶上的标签上培训，尽管当然，“价格安慰剂效应”可能对执行此款项的人不起作用。也许我应该坚持Prosecco…

正确伴奏音乐伴奏

“至少要谈论一口葡萄酒，就像听到持续的音乐和弦的声音一样。” –肯特·巴赫（Kent Bach）的知识，葡萄酒和品味：知识是什么好（享用葡萄酒）？

Spence教授的另一项研究，今天发表在味道,想调查上述声明,以及other similar writing from wine experts which compares wine with music. Can you match certain wines to certain types of music, and does listening to music enhance the drinking experience?

好吧，从这项小型研究中，两个问题的答案似乎都是“是”。研究人员使用四种葡萄酒进行了两次实验，以呈现独特的特征（包括酸度，水果，单宁和甜味），以及由伦敦交响乐团选择的八首音乐。

第一个实验表明，参与者认为某些葡萄酒是所选音乐的特定部分的特别好（或坏）。第二个实验研究了与沉默相比，当音乐被确定为葡萄酒时，三种葡萄酒是否更有趣。分析表明，参与者在听音乐时更喜欢葡萄酒。

So what does this mean for our wine choices this Christmas? We’ve looked at the wine characteristics from the study and paired them up with some of the track(s) they were better matched with. You can even access our Spotify playlist of all the music used in the experiment here:https://play.spotify.com/user/biomed_central/playlist/0UqnnKx4dExkADvv9x46VH

_^。

仔细选择您的设置

虽然自己不是普通威士忌酒的人，但我绝对可以在一个寒冷的冬夜里欣赏一杯威士忌的吸引力。根据Spence教授及其合着者的说法评估多感觉环境对威士忌酒饮酒体验的影响it’s possible to change your perception of a whisky by creating different environments to drink it in.

At a whisky tasting event, participants were asked to sample the same whisky in three different rooms. The rooms had been to designed to have a unique visual appearance, soundscape, fragrance, and feel which would emphasize a different attribute of the whisky; its grassiness, sweetness, or woodiness. It was found that participants rated the whisky as more ‘grassy’, ‘sweet’ or ‘woody’ in accordance with which room they were in.

So why not give it a go and see if you can create a sensory drinking experience at home?调味品迷的博客有一些很棒的技巧可以帮助您做到这一点。

So I wish you all a very enjoyable Christmas, and while I certainly don’t want to be accused of being a spoil sport, I wouldn’t be responsible if I didn’t also say that we advise enjoying all of these recommendations in moderation!