I find that DRINKING alcohol first, and THEN eating anything, makes it taste WONDERFUL!

My favorite origin story for the sauce is that it was misheard, originally called alla vacca. Vacca translates to cow, referring to the heavy cream and butter you add to a simple tomato sauce. Italy isn't really known for it's vodka industry after all.

I'm a physical chemist. You did a great job on your explanation of the science of water-ethanol solutions. For anyone who is curious about some real nitty gritty: ethanol and water form what's called an azeotrope at around 91-96% abv. This means at these concentrations the boiling point of the solution is lower than the individual boiling point of either of its components individually. If you are interested in evaporation in general there are two models that are pretty interesting. They are Henry's Law and Raoult's law. Hope this sparks some curiosity!

Gin is basically just vodka with juniper berries and sometimes other stuff added to it. I love it for vodka recipes, especially vodka pasta. Also, the longer you cook it for, the more alcohol you can add without it being bitter. I add quite a bit into the sauce and cook it very slowly for an hour or more before adding the cream

I'd love to see a deep dive into olive oil, it's insane how cheap vs expensive you can go

Ethan - this new explainer format that you’re doing (like you did for vanilla and Parmesan Reggiano) is everything I’ve ever wanted. I would watch a whole channel of just THAT. Thank you for the efforts!

Very interesting. I think this would NOT be the case for myself. My hypothesis is that San Marzano tomatoes were to blame for the lack of significant change on the sauce taste. I live in Argentina, we grow tomatoes here, and imports are scarce and expensive so I always make tomato sauce with home grown tomates. They are WAY more watery and acidic, so they require a different treatment, I go low and slow until they start to have that sweetness that we all know and love (no sugar nor baking soda btw, that's quite common here but I don't do that). In my experience vodka was an ABSOLUTE GAME CHANGER. Like.. head and shoulders ahead from my regular sauce, particularly the sweetness that it provides. I think for me it's about reason #2. Cooking alcohol to make alcohol molecules bound with something on my tomatoes to make them sweeter, which your San Marzano sauce didn't need. Just a food for thought after a thought for food. I'll definitely execute the experiment at home to really test it. Cheers and great content, thank you.

I'm using Sake in nearly every cooked dish. I learned this in Japanese recipes that very often use Sake, Soy sauce and Mirin. This also works in other dishes like italian recipes and elevates any flavor. Sake itself has no unpleasant taste of its own and the alcohol content should be minimal due to boiling.

I’ve always been skeptical of vodka pasta but since I don’t keep vodka at home never tried it, but often make “vodka style” sauce with no booze. Glad to see I wasn’t missing much if anything!

I really enjoy the blind taste test videos to try and compare the flavors with out the influence of reading a label. Super interesting to see you piece together your impressions and often bring them in line accurately.

I had vodka pasta at a restaurant with my wife and I thought it was just okay. We both agreed that gin would probably be better due to the flavors. Great to see that you thought gin was the better option too.

One thing to add, as the amount of ethanol evaporated doesnt just depend on the amount of ethanol added prior to cooking, you might actually end up with similar alcohol concentrations despite starting with different amounts - if the cooking time is long enough.

I think one thing missed in this experiment is that the timing of when you add the vodka to the sauce matters. In vodka sauce you’re adding at after frying off the tomato paste with the onion, which exposes the ethanol more directly to the tomato/onion and cooks off much faster. Also, because I’m weird I use dry vermouth in cooking where you’re not wanting the flavor of the alcohol and you’re just wanting the benefit that the ethanol brings to the party.

This is probably the first time when I’m not very satisfied with testing methodic. The best tasting recipe had different time when you introduce alcohol - it is used to deglaze tomato paste, not after you add cream. And here I’m pretty sure it makes significant difference. I definitely could smell fruity aroma of deglazed tomato paste. Also, that recipe included significantly more alcohol (I’d say about 6-8%), because it was introduced earlier and most of it was evaporated. Maybe I’ll try to make pasta alla vodka without alcohol some time to taste the difference for myself

This has to be my favorite cooking / science related KZfaq channel. You do such an amazing job at making science fun and practical while still extrapolating enough data to make our brains work a little. Bravo man really I aspire to incorporate this type of content into my normal day to day life, thanks again!

Anytime I make any kind of tomato based sauces, I always add about half a tablespoon of vodka when adding the room temperature tomatoes. That way the alcohol has a little time to extract the alcohol soluble flavors before it starts to evaporate.

Love the deep dives you've been taking in cooking, Ethan! Keep it up :D

I like how the result of testing pasta ala vodka was that you don't really need to add vodka.

Back when i made medicated brownies, I'd put a shot of amaretto into the herb-infused butter right at the last 5 minutes. Seemed both to add a nice hint of flavour and catalyze the absoprtion of the alkaloids into the fat

I love the way you planned and documented this whole thig out. Here is my thoughts though, I think the alcohol might best be added while cooking down the onions, garlic, and red pepper flakes in the butter. The reason for that is those are probably the biggest flavor notes you have in the sauce and that might be the best time to add the new flavors of gin into the sauce. I will try this next time I have some gin! Thinking Bombay sapphire east might be the best, because of its additional black pepper and lemongrass flavors. Would love to see a video of you testing this theory out! Would be more work, but might be worth it.

In Germany a similar sauce is often used in greek restaurants. It is made with Metaxa, a greek brandy, tomatos, butter, cream and often bell peppers and/or champignons. The brandy adds a very nice taste to the sauce.

"Wine is primarily flavored with grapes." is a sentence that will forever haunt me.

Other use for vodka in sauce: If you're trying to cook a cream based sauce very quickly, the alcohol will protect the sauce from breaking through heat of evaporation. This is because the liquid can't exceed the boiling point of alcohol until after a substantial portion of it boils off

This format is so freaking informational and addicting to watch. Thanks for all the hard work.

Really love the channels pivot to more food sciencey content, especially appreciate the practicality of your experiments. this type of content is not being made elsewhere and is genuinely helpful for home cooks

Ethan+Ethanol=Perfect Pasta! I think an interesting aspect of adding any type of ethanol is that certain flavours are alcohol soluble, rather than water soluble. Aspects of garlic are noticeably different to me depending on whether wine or vodka is added. Other flavours are fat soluble, whilst some may be be both, and will yield different results. I tend to notice the notes of bay leaf and fennel seed when I use wine or vodka in my sauce.

Man Ethan really appreciate all the time, work and effort that goes into your videos, especially the sciency ones like this!! I know I would never go through this to find this stuff out but definitely want to know lol - appreciate you going through it for us 😂 Amazing video

10:10 I usually add the vodka before the cream, which means that depending on the quantity and heat, it would need up to 15-20 minutes until the consistency is right, and fall rather under the first category. I do it like this, since the theory I heard is that the alcohol washes out flavor components from the tomatoes that otherwise can't be tasted, so obviously this can only happen before blending, and it has to be done with whole tomatoes or tomato chunks, not blended sauce. Also, since I cook it that long and usually cook a whole pot, even adding like 100ml of Vodka doesn't make the final sauce noticeably bitter at all. It is a heavy hitting dish that goes strong on flavors, so I would recommend using a lot of pepper, cream and cheese.

Ethan, as a biochemist this video really hit home with me. Anytime you namedrop a taste receptor like that I'm in heaven!

I might be a weirdo, but I find alcoholic cider to be a good fit for tomato sauces. One of the best baked pasta dishes I've ever made had a large splash of dry yuzu cider in it -- certainly acidic, but very fresh and fragrant :3 Loved this video!

As a Muslim who doesn’t drink or use alcohol in cooking I have always been so curious about this. Thank you !

I've always known to cook my chopped or whole tomatoes in the vodka first while making vodka sauce as it'll draw out the sweetness of the tomatoes. So I'd be curious as how the sauce would taste vs this method of first cooking a mother sauce then adding vodka to it. Instead of making the sauce with vodka from the start after sautéing the onions and garlic, adding the tomatoes then your vodka into it and letting it cook down.

I'm not sure if it's just your editing and you're fooling us all, but damn - I'm always really impressed by your taste buds. That's kind of a weird thing to say, but it really gives you quite a lot of credibility. I'm impressed.

I always thought using vodka for cooking was an odd choice because vodka is made to taste like nothing. When making cocktails you add vodka so there's that ethanol kick rather than changing flavor profile. Insightful stuff and love these scientific videos :)

This is amazing, Ethan! It'd be awesome to see what's the most optimal time to cook tomatoes for / and length of cooking. What happens to the tomatoes? What's the breakdown of the different flavors depending on the heat/ingredients/time of cooking? What makes a good tomato sauce?

Great video, Ethan! Really concise and good methodology. Really enjoyed learning about food here

These types of videos are better than 99% of the content on the Food Network. Excellent production my friend I really enjoyed this.

I love how well thought out your deep dives are. And don't worry about how long these vids are bc the people that are watching these are into what you're testing and not just for people looking for a recipe. I really don't want you to leave anything out hence why these need to be longer than some other vids, Thanks again Ethan for these great vids.

I have been using beer, r/w wine and cider in my cooking so far, but Pasta alla Gin sounds like something I have to try now. Considering I love gin(&tonic) and the flavor of juniper and coriander in food, I don't know why I didn't try this before. Great video, I love how in-depth you went and how you analyzed the different modes of flavor. Have a like and subscribe.

Excellent video. Fantastic format, great science, clean and organized. Huge fan!

I actually like the taste of Brandy in a creamy tomato soup. I think the sweet offsets the bitter well enough and the heat of the alcohol (and a bit of cayenne) makes it very warm going down on a cold day. I could see how it might be weird with pasta though.

Woof, it's the big chlebowski

There is a fourth use case for cooking with alcohol. Since it evaporates at a lower temp than water you can add fluid for coatings and mixing that shows up less in the final product. Thicker sauces, crispier fried breading, etc.

I love your educational style of combining science with experience and experimentation. Both entertaining and informational.

I can't believe you didn't use red wine !!! It has the most flavonoids of all alcohols and adds the most depth of flavor to any tomato based pasta dish. It's the most common alcohol used by Italians everywhere. It's not even a close comparison to any other alcohol. Also, white wine for any garlic based white pasta sauce! Great experiment as always, Ethan.

Fun experiments! If you're looking for part 2, I'd be curious to see if alcohol works better in dishes where you don't have the fats pulling double-duty as a solvent for non-polar molecules. (i.e. using alcohol in something with less butter & heavy cream)

Man, I just love your videos. Very consulting-like approach (no surprise here, given your background). You have a Polish roots, don’t you? You made a video on pierogi, so it’s a well-educated guess 🙂 Greetings from a Polish consultant! 🇵🇱

cooling down the tomato onion base and then blending it will give you more vibrant color.

I love your content! If you can, do one on different types of butter and if it affects taste at all!

Pretty cool taste test! I think especially interesting to find that gin could be the best tasting. It sort of opens up a treasure trove for experimentation, since gins can vary so much in the botanicals used.

That was excellent! Solid experimental setup and entertaining too! :) I just found this channel and am looking forward to watching more.

The blind testing was super interesting, but I would have loved if you tried the sauces you found similar after each other and tried to identify differences. That would have been helpful to actually see if the alcohol changes the flavor.

Mhh I'm not convinced by the experiment because I would certainly not add vodka to the finished product even with intent to cook down further. To my knowledge vodka is usually added early on, with the tomato paste into garlic and onion but before tomatoes. The idea is that it gives the opportunity for solvating flavour compounds and reacting with them before adding wet mass in the form of tomatoes that will prevent alcohol evaporation.

Awesome, high quality as I've come to expect from your uploads. This did address a burning question I've always had about adding vodka to the sauce. For the longest time I just assumed it was called Vodka Sauce for no reason other than to make the dish sound a little more substantial or interesting or fancier than what it is.

THAT IS SO PERFECT! I was thinking about this the last week and as youtube did not show me your video, even though I subscribed, I am glad to finally have this answered!

Ethan is actually really just a scientist, it just so happens that he’s also really good at cooking

It's been said ad nauseum....but this little series and episodes in this format have been pretty fantastic from vanilla, tomatoes, this episode, etc. Really enjoy them and it seems like you enjoy making them. Looking forward to what else you think to test and compare.

Great breakdown/tests! Science in cooking is my Fav!

I'm really enjoying these deep dives into food! Keep it up Ethan, I think you are on track to be the new Kenji.

I love how Ethan methodically breaks down a problem and draws charts to clarify things. He'd make an awesome engineer. 🤠

Ethan, your videos are truly exceptional. I've been a fan since your early days and it's clear to see why your reach has expanded so much. Your content fills a lot of gaps in my knowledge of food and is incredibly informative. Keep up the great work!

One more big questio, how does the ordet of adding ingredients during cooking influence the final taste? I would (potentially naively) add alcohol to the pan before I add tomato and cream. That would be an interesting taste test!

Great video mate love these types of food science experiment vids. Keep them coming

These videos are remarkably well made and edited, it’s clear you put many hours into each one. I am genuinely amazed! Thank you for producing such incredible content, it is appreciated!

I've always been using gin instead of vodka in my sauce and im glad he arrived at the conclusion that I also have.

This was so interesting! I love cooking with alcohol. I normally add wine or beer into many dishes I make. I even add tequila to some things. I've never used mezcal but I love smoky stuff so I could see this being amazing. The thought of using gin really peaked my curiosity and I could see those herbal notes being great in a pasta. Or even other dishes! Thank you so much. Now my mind is spinning how exactly I'm going to get 2% into my dishes cuz I don't measure very much stuff lol

Excellent video! Really high quality scientific experiment about cooking. Please keep more coming like this!

Fantastic video. Former restaurant person here. First off, there's a lot (potentially) going on chemically; for example, depending on cooking temps, some things might reach their Maillard Reaction temperatures (browning, caramelization) etc., which could influence final flavors, depending on the point at which alcohol was added. By adding it at a relatively low-temperature moment in the recipe, I wonder to what extent things might have been altered vs. adding it early. This felt like cooking Manderin but adding mirin at the very end, which (in my experience, at least) is a mistake, because one wants the sugars to convert to caramels and one wants to boil off most of the alcohol during cooking (although it's a tricky balance, because once it's in the wok, scraping the fond into the dish while on high temps until the moisture content drops enough is quite necessary to prevent harsh notes). I suspect the white-wine version would've been significantly upgraded if the wine was added with the butter and onions early, for example, but I'm not as convinced that the gin would've worked as well (very little sugar to work with, and who knows what bitters might result from floral / pine compounds reaching higher heat). It also makes me think that perhaps one area that somebody oughtta try making a product for the trade is in extracts for certain aromatics that we wouldn't normally want to drink; for example, oregano or thyme. It looks like, from a cursory search of the Internet, that this is a thing already (found "Extracts by Annie" on Etsy, for example) and I immediately wondered, "hey, how much of thyme's notes will be preserved; is this even vaguely going to carry the notes of fresh thyme", since fresh thyme is one of those things that I, like most people, only buy at home when I know a dish won't be right with the dried version. But this is an interesting theory: an Italian restaurant could use such extracts to cut down on prep-processing time and improve consistency while achieving A+ depths of flavor. One wonders if Olive Garden's test kitchen has tried this out (and if so, if they'd be willing to talk about it on the record). There are some other serious questions there, largely revolving around what would happen chemically as the flavenoids and other aromatic compounds were released (like, is it like mirin, where sooner is better... or is this something where it's better-used when temperatures won't permit much Maillard).

One day I was cooking and we were out of vodka, so I decided to try our gin instead. I've never gone back! The herbaceous notes just adds such a nice, light complexity. Welcome to the pasta al gin train!

My favourite alcohols for cooking are whiskey/brandy (same "spectrum" - aged wood, lots of caramel flavours) and cider, which works similar to white wine. I'm glad to have found out how alcohol actually works when it comes to cooking.

Whisk(e)y and desserts often pair well, depending on the choice of spirit. I once found myself with a bottle of Knob Creek bourbon that I didn't like to drink, but when I added it to the chocolate-graham cracker-almond base layer of a dessert bar recipe it was _amazing_ and brought black cherry and vanilla and a bit of caramel to the layer. It might be a challenge to find a good pairing for a peated Islay Scotch unless you love peat smoke, but unpeated whiskies in general should pair well with anything that isn't so powerfully flavoured that it'll overwhelm the influence of the spirit.

This was a fascinating taste-test. Thank you Ethan! On the subject of adding subtle flavors & aromas to cooked food with alcohol, it'd be really cool if you'd run this back with a few more spirits known for their distinct flavor/aroma profiles, namely: Sherries - (Oloroso, amontillado, and a PX for intense fruity sweetness) Whiskies - (Bourbon, a sherried scotch, and a peated scotch for the content) All of these should have quite the distinct effect on the sauce flavor, and are my preferred spirits for adding dimension to food!

Ethan, you are like the Mythbusters of cooking! Love how rigorous you are with these videos!

I cook with non-alcoholic wine all the time because they have all the flavour compounds with no alcohol to burn off (and they're surprisingly low on calories as any sugar that would be in them has been converted to alcohol). Super tasty and no bitter notes.

Love this channel you answer questions I didn't know I had

I think this confirmed my initial thoughts about cooking, that it really does not matter how closely you follow a recipe. I used to measure exactly how much wine or vodka I put in dishes, but it looks like you can be off by like a factor of 2 in either direction and it's not going to make a difference. Pretty much salt and sugar are the only things which really matter that you're somewhat close, but ironically recipes rarely tell you how much of those to put and instead just say: add until you like it, which is probably way more accurate than any recipe can get.

Really great video, I consider myself a home cook with no formal training and seeing the science as to why certain alcohols pair well with foods or in them, and why using things like wine can deepen flavors in things like sauces was awesome. Love the channel, keep it up!

So much work and an interesting experiment. Thank you for sharing this

Such a great channel! Ethan does a good job getting into the food science like Alton Brown on Good Eats but more direct and entertaining in its own right. Both are great programs and well produced, thanks for the content!

even though this obviously isn't a 100% accurate and objective experiment, it's really cool that you did it. I always wondered what was the deal with adding wine or other types of alcohol to food.

Just wanted to say thank you for producing such quality content. I have learned so much from your channel and appreciate the research and effort you put into each video. It doesn't go unnoticed!

Looking at this from a hobby chemist point of view, i suspect the ethanol itself isnt really adding much flavor but is instead acting as a solvent, dissolving different compounds from the ingredients and allowing them to react with each other forming new flavors. Cooking is just very specialized organic chemistry 😆

This is a great video that I’ve actually been hoping some people other than Kenji would dive into! However, I think you need to keep in mind that ethanol has pretty much no noticeable bitter flavour compared to its mild sweetness, almost all of the flavour in vodka is from the other congeners, calling vodka flavour “ethanol” is completely wrong and probably confused you a little with your ester research. It seems important to note that alcohol won’t do much to “bring out” ester flavours (except maybe aerosolise them a lil easier), but the alcoholS in spirits will produce esters themselves when mixed with the carboxylic acids in like tomatoes and stuff - as long as you give them some heat and time they’ll be noticeable. Aside from the extra flavours, one of the reasons most gins have far less bitter flavours than vodkas is that more of the congeners are necessarily removed when redistilling the spirit with botanicals so it would make sense you’d end up with a fresher and more vibrant flavour from the gin even if it didn’t have the botanicals that work well with the sauce. Based on your video, and the fact that your main problem with higher alcohol contents was bitterness, but there was still an improvement from its existence, especially with the gin, it seems like you’d actually like a sauce with a fair bit of ethanol, as long as you’re not getting too many congeners alongside it. Thank you for the great video! I love seeing food science become more mainstream

A small detail with alcho not mentioned in your video but likely not relevant is alcho vs waters wetness. which could contribute to better spread over our tongue :) love the video keep up the amazing video's

At 23:00 we can see that you kept on testing vodka during the video editing process, Ethan

The effort that went into this video is amazing.

Really interesting conclusions and so informative. Thank you!

i love that deep dive. My personal to-go is red wine for tomato sauce. gives it a rich body and enhances the existing flavours greatly

I've never seen someone mix the vodka in the sauce before cooking. I've always added the vodka after sautéing the onions, garlic, and tomato paste. The alcohol is supposed to help scrape up any delcious caramelized bits from the pan before it quickly burns off. Then i add the canned tomatoes and cream after.

Your channel just takes food science to a whole different level ❤

Love the content and your approach to food!

Your pasta vids are my favourite kind of vids. Keep killing it bro 💪

I've typically used red wines, but there are so many different types (amount of tannins, sweetness, etc...) that it's really hard to predict. Then there are all the fruity alcohols (apple, lemon), herbal liqueurs (compari?) - there's even a tomato gin. So much to experiment now!

3:11 Listen guys I made that sauce, and I thank god I tried it It is absolutely THE BEST pasta sauce you'll ever make All my friends just went crazy for it

Exceptional work, Ethan! Totally inspired to try that pasta alla gin!

Great video! Wondering how stored sauces would compair since the ethanol could extract more flavour over a week or so. When I add liqueurs like cognac to creme patissier (normally ~3% abv) and taste it right away it always is pretty mediocre, but leaving it overnight in the fridge allows everything to react/extract and then it tastes much better than if it were boozeless. I may have to make some sauces now lol

Midway in, i love this type of content. Really great explanation, very good visual representation of the 3 desirable components. Ethan is starting to grow on me and has a yet distinct style that separates him to Adam R. Fantastic! This earned my interest and sub

For cooking i like to use fino or manzanilla wine. They are both similar spanish aromatic wines that give great flavours to anything from pasta sauces to croquetes. It's great if you can get your hands on it.

I think for ester to form you need higher temperatures. In Chinese cooking we clear some ground in the middle of the pan/wok and pour shaoxing wine in. Or, we pour it around the pan/wok. Either case it directly got in touch with the hot cooking equipment. As a gin lover I guess I might start using gin in my pasta sauce from now on!

I've often called booze, "cooking soap," as in it combines the fat soluble and water soluble flavors. Also, when I add alcohol, I tend to add it before I start adding water back to my sauce and I count watery vegetables and canned tomatoes and cream all as, "water." The main idea is that it works more to bind flavors if you add it soon after you've concentrated the your flavors from the onions desiccated/sauteed in butter.