Formulation of a mocktail concentrate of lemon with mint

Abstract

Non-alcoholic cocktails, in general, look very similar to alcoholic cocktails, with the difference that they do not use any type of alcoholic drink; they are suitable for anyone, even children. These are usually prepared based on fruit juices, soft drinks, grenadine and ice cream, with the most popular cocktails being those based on tropical fruits and citrus. The general objective of this work was to develop a formulation of a non-alcoholic orange-mint cocktail concentrate, of good acceptability, that allows its production on an industrial scale. The orange syrup concentrate produced and marketed by the Food Industry Research Institute was used as a base for the preparation of cocktail concentrate. The quality of the two fundamental raw materials was evaluated: orange syrup and peppermint essential oil, which were found to be adequate for the formulation. With the application of the ideal point scale (JAR) and the affective test with a seven-point hedonic scale, the optimal content of an ethanolic solution at 1% m/m in the orange syrup concentrate (0.9 g/100 g of orange syrup). The penalty analysis, indicated that the parameter that had the greatest weight in the acceptance of the product was the mint essence content, compared to orange content and sweetness. The cocktail concentrate produced with the optimized mint essence content presented 56.2°Brix, 1.34% acidity, mold and yeast count less than 102 CFU/mL and an acceptance of 6.5 on a scale of seven points, resulting in a high acceptability rate of 93%. The addition of peppermint essential oil after the cooling stage is proposed.