Cocktails with Salt
Salt is a mineral composed chiefly of sodium chloride, used as a seasoning to add saltiness and heighten other flavours.
Taste profile
Cleanly saline — saltiness is one of the five basic tastes, and beyond its own flavour it broadens and lifts the perception of other components.
How it's used
A pinch, or a few drops of pre-mixed saline solution, seasons a drink and sharpens its other flavours without reading as salty itself. Crystal size varies widely between fine, coarse and flake forms, so equal volumes hold different amounts of sodium chloride; dosing by weight gives consistency. Solid crystals dissolve slowly and unevenly in a cold build, which is why a saline solution is often preferred.
Substitutes for Salt
Any form of sodium chloride serves — dry crystals or a pre-mixed saline solution, adjusted by equivalent weight — since all deliver the same saltiness; no sweet, sour or bitter ingredient can stand in, as none reproduces the saline taste.
Description
Produced by solar evaporation of seawater, by mining underground halite deposits, or by vacuum-evaporating purified brine, edible salt ranges from near-pure refined table salt to coarser rock and flake forms. Refined table salt is close to pure sodium chloride, often carries anticaking agents to stay free-flowing, and is frequently iodised with potassium iodide.
