FRIDAY, Dec. 16, 2011 — The music is blaring so loudly at the bar your friend suggested that you can barely hear the story your friend is telling you, so you smile and nod and sip your drink, which tastes surprisingly good. But does it? A team of researchers sought out to learn how music can affect perception of the taste of alcohol. What they found: Louder music equals sweeter-tasting cocktails.
In the study, published in the journal Food Quality and Preference, participants rated the sweetness, bitterness, and strength of various alcoholic beverages while drinking in four different scenarios, which ranged from reading the news to hearing loud, club-style music.
Drinking while listening to loud music made the drinks taste sweeter compared to drinking in a quiet environment or around other distractions, such as hearing or having to repeat a news report. "Since humans have an innate preference for sweetness, these findings offer a plausible explanation as to why people consume more alcohol in noisy environments," Lorenzo Stafford, MD, a psychologist from the University of Portsmouth who conducted the study told The Press Association.
The sweetness also made drinkers consume more alcohol more quickly, and the more intoxicated you feel, the less likely you can adequately judge how many drinks you’ve had. Researchers pointed out it’s important to recognize how an environment can influence the way we consume alcohol, even if patrons at a bar or club are likely to drink more than they would in other environments, anyway.