Features / Drink
Creating cocktails with the help of artificial intelligence
Commencing with cupcakes and cocktails, a small team in Bristol are at the epicentre of a movement that could revolutionise the global food and drink industry.
On a recent Wednesday afternoon, their latest project was being put to the test in the bar of The Square Club in Clifton, as bar manager Seb Fileccia created cocktails whose recipes had first been devised by artificial intelligence (AI).
“Our ambition is to be able to show that you can combine AI with creative human beings, and you can then come up with something more interesting than if you did it on your own,” said Kerry Harrison, co-founder of Tiny Giant.
is needed now More than ever
When it was put to work creating cupcakes, the neural networks of Tiny Giant’s AI system suggested making one cupcake with vanilla, Guinness and Marmite; which according to Kerry was surprisingly tasty.
For its four cocktails, one was similar to a negroni but the three others bore no resemblance to anything else in existence, and this is where Seb’s skills came into play to tweak the AI recipes in order to make them palatable.
Kerry and Tiny Giant co-founder Richard Norton were eagerly watching Seb as he made the four cocktails. It was the culmination of this latest stage of a journey whose potential is virtually limitless.
“It’s great to see a physical output,” Kerry said. “It looks interesting on a computer. But it’s only when you get that human element to it that you can see what it’s like in real life.”
With its neural network created by developer Derek Ahmedzai at Sharpshooter, the AI produced a recipe that for one cocktail, the Balterry Liquirui (the machine also came up with the same as well as the ingredients), looked like this:
- 3 tablespoons sour apple schnapps
- 3 tablespoons Campari
- 1 ground cordial wice
- 30ml (1 fl oz) chilled ringen and omegra che rice
- pineapple and orange juice
- 1 slice of lime
Seb’s tweaks included the addition of Calvados rather than the apple schnapps, choosing elderflower as the cordial, also adding Punt E Mes vermouth, and using orange bitters and zest instead of orange juice.
“I think AI is scary,” Seb admitted. “But I also think that this is a very interesting project. It has taken me outside my comfort zone a little bit.
“It has been a real eye-opener thinking about the ingredients in these cocktails. Some of the ingredients were bonkers. Others were more safe bets.
“Within the next couple of decades, things could get interesting. But we (as bar staff) have a very important purpose. There are aspects of AI that will not get close to human beings. A human palette cannot be replicated.”
Richard Norton and Kerry Harrison of Tiny Giant sampling the finished cocktails
Read more: New cocktail bar Crying Wolf opens on Cotham Hill
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
