Peruse the drinks menu of London’s Grain Store and you could be forgiven for sensing the hand of Willy Wonka at play. Visitors to this fashionable restaurant in the re-gentrified King’s Cross area can choose from ‘savoury cocktails’ such as Butter & Hay Champagne, Pumpkin & Maple Syrup Bellini and Cedar Wood Lemonade.

The inspiration behind these tantalising concoctions bears no resemblance to Gene Wilder (nor Johnny Depp), yet a touch of the Wonkas undeniably extends to Zoe Burgess and her experimental drinks laboratory.

Zoe is Head of Research and Development at the Drink Factory – a north London lab that embraces Heston Blumenthal-esque techniques to create genuinely astonishing refreshments.

Established by mixologist Tony Conigliaro, the Drink Factory creates cocktail recipes for his 69 Colebrooke Row bar and other London-based collaborations such as the Zetter Townhouse and Grain Store.

But if the Drink Factory is beginning to sound like a production line for upmarket London cocktail bars, rest assured. Zoe may preside over her spotless lab in a similarly spotless white coat, but the Drink Factory is as much about art as it is about science.

“We’re magpies,” says Zoe. “We’re always out and about, watching films, listening to music, smelling perfume. You never switch off with this kind of thing.”

“It’s a very creative place,” says Zoe. “We moved here about three years ago to expand our ‘flavour library’ of botanicals, herbs and spices.” Among many curiosities, Hot Rum Cow notes that said library contains a Swedish hunting concoction flavoured with beaver glands.

The Drink Factory’s best-known creation is probably its radical reinvention of the Prairie Oyster. Conigliaro was intrigued by the combination of flavours in the traditional hangover remedy concoction of raw egg, Worcestershire sauce, salt, black pepper and Tabasco, and also wanted to play around with the ‘oyster’ theme.

The Drink Factory Prairie Oyster is served in an oyster-style ceramic shell and is designed to slide down your throat in one go, as an oyster would. However, instead of a mollusc, the shell contains what appears to be a raw egg. But all is not what it seems. The ‘egg’ is in fact constructed from clarified tomato juice, horseradish vodka, Oloroso sherry,Worcestershire sauce, pepper sauce, shallots, red wine vinegar and oyster leaf.

“We’re magpies,” says Zoe. “We’re always out and about, watching films, listening to music, smelling perfume. Sometimes, we’re inspired by something very classical, sometimes by something a bit more abstract. You never switch off with this kind of thing. For instance, the Woodland Martini, which was on the menu at 69 Colebrooke Row, was inspired by Tony going for a woodland walk in Portland in the States. We then recreated that with cedar, liquorice, gin, Amontillado, bitters, all kinds of things.

“On average we like to work on a drink for a couple of months. About 90 per cent of what we do sees the light of day. Sometimes you do a bit of work but are not sure what to do next, so you give it space and file it away.”

Burgess’s favourite accomplishment to date has been the Grain Store cocktail menu she created – the enjoyment lay in the emphasis on savoury flavours and the interaction with the food created by chef Bruno Loubet. She also worked on some Roman-inspired smoked and herb-infused wines for Grain Store and there are many other eyebrow-raising experiments going on in her lab – such as extracting the flavour of flint for terroir-inspired cocktails.

Although very much pioneers in the field of sensory exploration, Conigliaro and Burgess are not alone. She points to Condiment Junkie, a ‘sonic branding’ agency that uses sound to influence taste, and Professor Charles Spence, Head of the Crossmodal Research Laboratory at the University of Oxford. Indeed, the three have teamed up for experiments, including one that showed that drinks taste sweeter if you play high-pitched music in the background.

It makes one wonder if ghosts of a musical variety may occasionally influence the drinks she creates – the building the Drink Factory is based in is owned by Pink Floyd keyboards player Nick Mason and part of The Wall was recorded there. It’s an exciting environment to be in, with other creative entrepreneurs taking rooms in the centre – all adding to Burgess’s acknowledgement that she has landed something of a plum job.

“I went to art school and then ended up working for a really small artisanal chocolate company,” she says. “That was a revelation; I started to realise what flavour was. I’d been there for four years when I met Tony – I was really intrigued by the way he works. It was a case of right place, right time and I managed to come on board. I do have jealous friends, particularly when I say, ‘I used to work in chocolate and now I work in cocktails’ … what next?”

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Continue reading Part 2: Spotting pretentious poppycock

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