How much does alcohol affect basal temperature?

Cocktails: How does temperature affect the taste of alcohol?

• I'm looking for a physiological explanation (e.g. interaction between ethanol and taste receptors in tongue).

• Answer:

  As with most explanations about taste, the nose, not the tongue, plays the key role.  The primary effect of temperature is that the warmer the drink is, the more alcohol will evaporate.  More alcohol in the air above the drink means that the drink will seem stronger because more will make its way into your nose. Let's take a look at what that means for a glass of scotch.  If you chill the Scotch with ice, less of the alcohol will aerosolize, making the drink feel smoother.  If you were to order it neat (no ice; room temperature), you'd get a lot more of the alcohol in your nose.  And, if you were to heat it, whoo!  You'd really get a noseful.  The hotter you get the alcohol, the closer you're getting to doing this with it: This is why hot drinks served in winter almost always have other ingredients besides alcohol in them - otherwise they'd be completely overwhelming. It's also why most cocktails are chilled: to reduce the strength of the spirits evaporating into your nose.