About Flavourful by Atelier Pip
I'm Zoe Burgess, flavour expert, acclaimed author of The Cocktail Cabinet: The Art, Science and Pleasure of Mixing the Perfect Drink, and owner of the drinks consultancy Atelier Pip. With over a decade of experience crafting drinks that tell stories, I've collaborated with Michelin-starred chefs, independent restaurants, and renowned hospitality groups and hotels such as Artfarm and The Standard. My work goes beyond recipes - I weave ingredients together to represent brands, people, places, and cultural moments. I’m fascinated by cocktail culture and the semiotics of flavour - how drinks communicate beyond taste.
This Substack dives into those ideas, exploring the iconography, structure, and evolution of cocktails, including alcohol-free ones, to unlock flavour innovation. I’ll divide up my thoughts into the following headings:
Flavour Musings
Spotlighting a single ingredient, exploring how and why it connects with consumers through sensory, social and cultural analysis. We’ll also feature fellow flavour enthusiasts, discussing their favourite flavours and inspiration.
Statement Cocktails
An in-depth look at the semiotics of cocktails- what they represent and how they shape cocktail culture, influence trends, and impact consumer choices.
Perfect Pours
In Perfect Pours, we take a deep dive into the structure of cocktails, examining their components and potential for creative evolutions. We’ll also explore other liquids that play a role in the cocktail world, including low and no alcohol cocktails. Along the way, expect insights into the creative process.
I Fried My Brain
What is Flavour? How does the brain process it, and why do we crave the experience? In this series, we’ll be exploring the science of flavour and the multisensory experience.
Join me as we unravel the world of flavour.
The Cocktail Cabinet
In 2022, I published my debut cocktail book ‘The Cocktail Cabinet: The art, science and pleasure of mixing the perfect drink’.
The first part of the book offers tips, tricks and thoughts on the structure and flavour of cocktails, breaking down drinks into the five main tastes; sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and savoury. It explores different techniques and explains why certain ingredients are often paired together. Taken as a whole, this advice helps my readers to further understand their own taste preferences and craft unique cocktails suited to their palette.
The second half of the book covers 80 iconic recipes, split into the following themes: champagne-based, stirred, bitter, sour and long. Each page includes the basic recipe using helpful illustrations to demonstrate the flavour profile. I also include additions and variations, or non-alcoholic alternatives, allowing endless enjoyment.
The book was nominated for best new cocktail book at Tales of The Cocktail 2023 awards and has been translated into Spanish and Italian.
About Atelier Pip
I founded Atelier Pip with the aim of going beyond simply designing a drink or cocktail menu, instead weaving ingredients together, elevating them to tell the stories of the brands they represent, and the people, places, and cultural moments that are meaningful to them.
Every project extends beyond the realm of taste, and looks at the sensory experience, thinking around the flavours, and playing with moments, soundtracks and interiors, to ensure that every flavour tells a story, moment by moment.
