Culinary flavours shake up drinks: Overview
- Beverage brands are drawing inspiration from kitchens, regional cuisines and fermentation traditions to create new flavour experiences.
- Dessert-inspired beers are gaining traction, with flavours such as cheesecake, matcha mochi and cranachan entering the market.
- Savoury and fermented ingredients including dill pickle, kimchi and umami-rich foods are expanding flavour boundaries in beer.
- Wine and spirits producers are also embracing culinary cues through pistachio spritzes and miso- or mushroom-infused whiskey serves.
- While unlikely to become mainstream, these innovations highlight consumers’ growing openness to unconventional drink flavours.
Beverage innovation is increasingly taking its cues from the kitchen, as producers experiment with ingredients and combinations traditionally associated with food. From sweet and indulgent profiles to savoury, fermented flavours, culinary influences are opening up new possibilities across beer, wine and spirits.
That crossover is giving beverage brands permission to venture into increasingly unexpected territory, from cheesecake and matcha mochi beers to pickle, kimchi, miso and mushroom-inspired drinks. Charles Banks, managing director of thefoodpeople, identified culinary inspiration as an increasingly important source of beverage innovation at BrauBeviale 2026.
“The opportunity here isn’t simply to just create the next really unusual flavour. It’s to rethink where flavour inspiration can come from: regional cuisine, adjacent categories, fermentation traditions, the chef’s kitchen,” he said.
Dessert moves beyond the plate
Banks highlighted dessert-inspired flavours as an emerging area of experimentation, with beer brands turning to familiar sweet treats and patisserie for ideas.
One example is Vault City’s 2026 Bake-Off series, developed in collaboration with breweries including Uchu Brewing, Evil Twin Brewing, Samata Brewing and Azvex Brewing Co. The range includes a Matcha Mochi Beer, New York Cheesecake Beer, Thai Dessert Sago Pudding Beer and a Cranachan-inspired sour.
Drawing on everything from creamy cheesecake and biscuit to traditional Thai sago pudding and the Scottish dessert cranachan, the beers demonstrate how brewers are translating familiar food experiences into unexpected flavour combinations.
Pickles, ferments and savoury flavours
At the other end of the flavour spectrum, savoury ingredients are also finding their way into beverage development. Pickles, fermented foods and umami-rich ingredients are providing inspiration for brands looking to move beyond the sweet and fruity profiles traditionally associated with many drinks.
Banks highlighted Orbit Beers’ Dill Pickle Gose, which combines dill, salt and fermented cucumber. “Challenging perhaps, but perfectly in tune with the growing appetite that we see for pickles and ferments and savoury flavours,” he said.
Other breweries are exploring similar territory. US-based Martin House Brewing has collaborated with pickle brand Best Maid on a Sour Pickle Beer, made with pickle juice, while Seattle’s Lucky Envelope Brewing has experimented with a Kimchi Sour, incorporating Korean chilli flakes, spring onions and kimchi.
A culinary twist on wine and spirits
While much of the experimentation Banks highlighted centred on beer, he suggested that wine and spirits producers are also looking to food culture to rethink familiar serves. Ingredients and flavour combinations more commonly associated with cooking are beginning to find their way into drinks, bringing a more savoury dimension to these categories.
“We’re seeing similar experimentation beyond beer with wine-based spritzes, including flavours like pistachio or botanicals. Similar things in whiskey, particularly whiskey serves. We’re seeing many more savoury and culinary-inspired serves using miso and mushroom and herbs and umami,” he said.
Stretching consumer expectations
Banks cautioned that not every experimental flavour combination would necessarily become mainstream.
“Clearly, all of these are not destined to be mainstream, and I think that’s not really the point. They are signals of how far consumers’ expectations of a drink can potentially stretch,” he said.
For beverage manufacturers, the opportunity lies in looking beyond traditional category boundaries to develop distinctive products and explore new flavour territories.