Tanqueray’s New Cocktails Tap into Subconscious Preferences
Published 17 April 2025
Using a combination of neuroscience, artificial intelligence (AI) and bartender expertise, British premium gin brand Tanqueray (owned by drinks giant Diageo) has developed a way to make personalised cocktails based on a person’s brainwaves when alert and in a relaxed state. It experimented on three ‘dreamers’, creating drinks designed to appeal to their subconscious preferences.
During the experiment, a partnership with creative consultancy VML UK, electroencephalography (EEG) headsets from London-based tech company MyndPlay were used to analyse the dreamers’ – “a specially selected group of creative minds” – brainwaves and turn them into data while they were exposed to different scents, like vanilla, mint and spices, and a variety of sounds. The activity was carried out twice: while the participants were alert and when they were relaxed.
The data was fed to Diageo’s FlavorPrint AI platform, which analyses and maps users’ flavour preferences against a database of foods and aromas (previously covered here).
Finally, a trio of award-winning bartenders were enlisted to interpret the results and craft cocktails for each participant, including food influencer and author Sam Way (UK), stylist and design expert Federica Gervasoni (Italy) and Thai De Melo, Brazilian journalist, artist and model.
Way’s cocktail, Cordial Conversation, is said to be mysterious and multilayered, based on balancing his subconscious inclination towards liquorice and smoky flavours with his conscious craving for floral profiles. Meanwhile, Gervasoni’s Dusk Delusion embraces her waking preference for tropical and smoky notes as well as her longing for mellower vanilla and cream in her relaxed state. De Melo’s Essence Whisper plays with her fondness for lighter notes of liquorice, berry and herbs when alert and her subconsciously chosen coffee and mint.
