Turmeric shot flavour profile, and what each ingredient brings to it

Before you buy a box of something you've never tasted, it helps to know which ingredients do what, and a label tells you more about that than any tasting note.

A turmeric shot flavour profile combines aromatic compounds from the root, heat from pepper or ginger, and sweetness and sourness from a fruit base. Laboratory work on turmeric's aroma traces its familiar smell largely to turmerones. The quickest guide is the turmeric percentage on the label, which reaches 30% in our range.

Key takeaways

• Turmeric's recognisable smell comes largely from aromatic compounds called turmerones.
• The burn from a shot is a heat sensation, triggered by compounds in ginger, black pepper, and chilli.
• Sweet tastes tend to suppress bitter and sour ones, which is part of why fruit is so useful in a shot.
• Beetroot's earthiness has its own known source, a compound called geosmin.
• Labels can't tell you how a shot tastes, though the order and percentages show you what's likely to lead.

What makes up a turmeric shot flavour profile?

Aroma, taste, and heat, with different ingredients responsible for each.

A flavour profile is defined as the mix of tastes, smells, and physical sensations you notice as you drink something. It's a useful way to think about a shot because the three layers have separate causes. Aroma comes from volatile compounds that reach your nose. Taste is the sweet, sour, salty, and bitter part. Heat isn't a taste at all, and comes from compounds acting on the nerves that sense temperature.

We don't publish tasting notes here, because palates differ and a label can't settle what you'll experience. What follows is the chemistry that's been studied, and what each label declares.

What gives raw turmeric its flavour?

Mainly its aromatic oils, and the usual word for the result is earthy.

When researchers in that aroma work separated turmeric's volatile compounds, the part that smelled recognisably of turmeric consisted mainly of ar-turmerone and β-turmerone. The researchers concluded the full aroma depends on a combination of groups, since other fractions smelled quite different on their own.

Many people also pick up a bitter edge in raw turmeric. We couldn't find a taste study that pins that on a specific compound, so we won't name one. The aromas you notice aren't curcumin either, so a stronger smell doesn't tell you how much curcumin you're getting.

Where does the heat come from?

From a family of compounds that act on the same heat-sensing receptor, TRPV1.

• In ginger, lab work found gingerols, the pungent compounds, trigger responses like those from capsaicin. Heat and drying turn them into shogaols, which give dried ginger its characteristic pungency.
• In black pepper, separate lab work found piperine, the pungent compound, acts on the same receptor, needing more of it than capsaicin to do so.
• In chilli, capsaicin is the classic example, and it's the compound that piperine was measured against.

That's why a shot can seem to burn without being hot in temperature. In our range, every shot carries our trade-secret BioMax Uptake Blend®, which includes black pepper, at a 0.1% inclusion. At that level, we'd expect ginger to be the bigger source of heat wherever a shot contains a good amount of it.

What does the fruit base do?

It balances the rest, and sweetness in particular has a measured effect.

In a taste-mixture study, people rated solutions of sugar, salt, citric acid, and a bitter compound, alone and in combination. Sweetness from sugar was the least suppressed taste and the strongest suppressor of the others. That was tested in lab solutions and not in juice.

Every one of our shots is a cold-crushed, whole watermelon-based blend, with watermelon running from 30% to 56% of the label and fruit such as pineapple, pomegranate, or raspberry depending on the blend. Most also list lemon, and citric acid is the sour side of that picture.

Why can beetroot taste earthy?

Because of geosmin, a compound with a well-documented smell.

Research on table beet attributes its characteristic earthy flavour and aroma to geosmin, with levels that vary by variety and appear to be made by the plant itself. So if you find beetroot earthy, there's chemistry behind it, and two of our blends list it: Raw Turmeric & Beetroot and Raw Turmeric & Pro-Collagen. Our guide to what a beetroot shot is covers what else beetroot brings.

How do our shots compare on the label?

By turmeric share they run from 30% down to 7%, with very different supporting casts.

Read that as a guide to what's likely to lead, since these are declarations and not tasting notes. If you want turmeric itself at the front, Original has twice the share of the next shot down. If you like heat, XTRA Ginger has the most ginger and is the only one with chilli. If raw turmeric is the part you're nervous about, the blends at the bottom of the table have the least.

Does a stronger flavour mean a better shot?

No. Flavour and function are separate questions.

Those aromatic turmerones are different compounds from curcumin, so a punchy smell is no measure of what a shot delivers. Powder shows the same split from the other direction: an analysis of turmeric powders found curcumin averaging around 3%. It's a fine source of flavour in a curry, and it's the wrong place to look for a meaningful daily dose. Our guide to fresh vs powdered turmeric goes into that comparison.

What matters in the long run is whether you'll keep drinking it. So choose by what you can look forward to at breakfast, and judge the evidence on its own terms.

Which shot should you start with?

Original if you want turmeric itself, and a mixed box if you're unsure.

Raw Turmeric Original has the most turmeric in our range. It's also the blend independent researchers at Nottingham Trent University tested in the first clinical trial of our blends, where 16 of 24 elite male footballers took it and showed lower CRP at 64 hours and less soreness after matches than the 8 controls. It's a small study in athletes, and we're clearly not a neutral party.

If you'd rather compare, the Mixed Shot Box puts our core blends in one place. And if the first sip is a challenge, our guide to making a turmeric shot taste better has practical fixes, while diluting a ginger shot covers the hotter blends. Anyone on regular medicines should check with a GP or pharmacist before starting a daily shot, as the NHS advises for herbal medicines.

The takeaway

A turmeric shot's flavour comes down to aromatic compounds in the root, heat from ginger, pepper, or chilli, and the sweetness and sourness of a fruit base. A label won't tell you how it tastes, though it shows which of those is likely to lead.

For a daily habit with the turmeric front and centre, Raw Turmeric Original with breakfast is where we'd begin.

Frequently asked questions