Should You Really Be Eating Your Drink Garnishes?

The garnish that adorns your drink is often an overlooked aspect of your overall drinking experience. While some garnishes are more or less superfluous, giving your drink little more than an appreciated boost in the aesthetics department, some other garnishes are essential elements not only with regards to your drink's appearance, but also with regards to completing your drink's smell and taste profiles. However, whether for cosmetic appeal or not, a drink garnish is hardly ever intended to be an extra snack for the drinker.

Whether it be the obligatory skewer of olives needed when making a dirty martini or the classic lemon twist and cherry that can adorn cocktails such as the whiskey sour, it might be tempting to eat the garnish that comes with your drink. But this is where you should practice caution and really consider what you're eating and where it may have come from. Many garnishes at dive bars and other busy budget-friendly establishments may have prepped loads of garnishes in advance (especially sliced citrus), so that lemon slice may have been sitting on the bartop for the whole night prior to decorating your glass. On the other hand, the garnishes at higher-end bars tend to be purely for aesthetics, and you might get a few sidelong glances if you chomp down on that orange peel. On the whole, it's best to avoid eating your garnishes, both for sanitation and because that's not the focus of your drink, anyway.

Let's say you like to take some fresh fruit and make some beautiful ice cube tray garnishes that fit right in with a pitcher of sangria. This might lead you to think that eating garnishes is just another part of your drinking experience, but that's not necessarily true. But even though some garnishes aren't meant to be eaten, there are still some that are most likely perfectly safe (and sensible) to eat. So how can you tell which garnishes fall into what category?

With regards to citrus, arguably the most popular form of garnish, you can keep this general rule in mind: slices and peels are for show, while wedges are for use within your drink. You'll often see mojitos garnished with a wedge of lime, for example, since this gives you the option of adding extra lime juice to your cocktail should you choose. Eating the wedge is not only not the wedge's purpose, but the strong lime flavor will likely ruin how you taste the rest of the drink.

There are some garnishes that are probably fine to eat, though. Most cocktail cherries are stored in tubs full of syrup (think those bright red sundae cherries) or are sealed and protected on account of their higher price point (think the darker imported Maraschino cherries). While these will still alter your taste buds, eating them at the end of your drink is certainly less offensive than other garnishes, and their storage inside a syrup keeps them safe behind the bar.

A bright, well-kept garnish, such as those beautiful edible flowers, is a welcome and pleasing pop of color in your drink. That is, it's incredibly good-looking if the garnish is fresh. If you've been served a drink with an unappealing garnish before, then you'll know all too well how disappointing and frankly distasteful your drink looks. And beyond looks, a bad garnish might signal that the garnish itself isn't exactly clean or in its ideal state. So what should you look out for when eyeing your garnish?

For citrus, you want to see bright colors and juicy flesh, preferably with an aromatic peel. Citrus that has been prepped and sitting in a pile of other citrus pieces for hours will be softer, almost floppy, and will likely have the pale look as if it's stewed in citrus juice for a while (which it probably has). For herbs, stiff and springy leaves and a fresh smell are a green flag. No one wants limp, foul-smelling mint or desiccated rosemary. As said, cherries and other syrupy garnishes tend to be safe, but if you see crystalized sugar on them then it means they haven't been stored properly at some point, so tread carefully. On the whole, you can assume that cocktail garnishes aren't meant for eating. But even if you aren't eating them, you still want to make sure that your garnishes aren't detrimental to your drink either, so carry these tips with you next time you order your favorite cocktail.