From cochineal to dyes adopted in today’s Liquoristics
Journey through the red Carmine the story of a color that has rendered indelible bitters and liqueurs
The Italian law defines the liqueur as a spirit drink with alcohol of neutral agricultural origin, of neutral gradation, of a gradation exceeding 15 ° and not exceeding 55 ° with a minimum sugar content of 100 grams per litre. Liqueurs can be produced with three different systems: by distillation, by infusion, or by the whole of the two systems. But the subject that I am going to deal with in this article, is not about the production regulations and not about the various types of liqueurs on the market, but rather on a very interesting and not in-depth topic, namely on food additives that give Colors so peculiar and pleasing to our bitters and liqueurs. A color that stands out immediately to our eyes and our customers is the red carmine, the story of a color that built an empire. It all starts from the cochineal which is a dye derived from the insect of the same name belonging to the family of Cocchoidea, in particular by the females of the species Dactylopius, Dactylopius coccus and of the species Kermes vermilion.
It is a white and plump insect coming mainly from Mexico and Peru.
The name “cochineal” derives from Cochinilla which in Spanish means a small pig of land. It is a parasite that for living needs plants of the genus Opuntia,
that is cactus, and for more than 2000 years is used in America to dye the clothes and coloring the food.
The scale insects are bred in cactus plantations – in Europe they breed in Spain mainly. The red substance is present only in females and is in greater concentration in the pregnant ones. The insects are bred on the blades of prickly pear; The female specimens are collected with metallic spatulas just before the spawning and left to die and dry in the sun, then they are ground to obtain the powder then treated with hot water to extract the colored molecule, the acid Carminic
The insect secretes a very dense and intensely colored liquid that it uses as a wrapper to protect itself by predators. About 80-100 thousand insects are needed to produce one kilogram of dye. European cochineal has a maximum content from 0.6% to 0.8% of carminic acid (which gives the intensity of the red tone), and the European kermes reaches only 1%, just in this there is the great contribution of Mexican cochineal: The insect has between 17 and 24%, An intensity never obtained in Europe until before the Spanish conquest.
Although Scarlet is the color of sin in the Old Testament, the elite of the ancient world always had thirst for red, a symbol of wealth and social status. It was Hernán Cortés, and the Conquistadors, who discovered this highly saturated red pigment in the large markets of Tenochtilan, the ancient capital of the Aztec Empire, located where Mexico City stands today. The ancient inhabitants of the present Mexican states of Puebla and Oaxaca had developed a system to manipulate insects and obtain the best results with the pigment that used to paint their “murals”, to dye the tissues and feathers, and even as a medicinal product.
The Aztecs knew the properties of the insect for centuries, they had learned perhaps from the Mixtec made by crushing the cochineal of Carmine, the mysterious dye launched Spain in its role of economic superpower and became one of Main exports of the new world, while red fashion was established in Europe. In the sixteenth century, the Spaniards began to export the carmine red of the cochineal in Europe, where it reached a high price as dyeing for the cloths and for the use of the painters.
In Europe dating from the Middle Ages there was a great obsession between painters, but also among dyers, to obtain the perfect red pigment. They used roots and resins to create satisfactory yellow, green and blue. The most common red in Europe came from the Ottoman Empire, where to obtain it it was used the root of a plant La Robbia, or Rubbia (Rubia tinctorum). For the rich thirst we used the Sääner (or kermes) a dye that were derived from the dried bodies of the females of some species of cochineal. Another insect, therefore, of the same family that in Italy was exploited especially in Sicily. But with the discovery of America, the Mexican cochineal supplanted the kermes because it produced a more intense red, the carmine of the cochineal, with less quantity and more ductile. The good weather conditions of the Canary Islands, owned by the Spanish crown, allowed the plants of the genus Opuntia to be planted there in which the cochineal lives. Later, there was the appearance of artificial dyes that did not bring to ruin this trade, the carmine of the cochineal, called “Grana” among the Spaniards, remained one of the most valuable Mexican export products, between 1650 and 1860, surpassed only by gold . The food additive E 120 is an aluminium salt of carminic acid. Today, all the most famous food products in Italy that contained E120 are passed to other dyes (because of its nature, since it is pulverized insects), mainly the E122 (Azorubine) and the E124, (also called cochineal A, i.e. artificial, or Ponceau 4r).
Unlike cochineal E120, they are azo dyes, obtained by synthetic way in the laboratory. There have also been reported cases of allergies to the dye E120 and probably those responsible are the proteins of insects. In fact, during extraction, some insect proteins pass in the dye in percentages around 0.5%. In order to reduce allergies, a method has been proposed to reduce the presence of proteins by enzymatic hydrolysis. Like many dyes, both the E120 and the synthetic reds are accompanied on the label by the warning that it does not recommend the massive intake for children, in view of the possible risk of attention disturbances. In the United States, the use of cochineal has little restriction, provided it is labelled transparently as a “natural dye”.
For some manufacturers, having a natural dye, reliable and bright color was a great comfort. But its provenance from animals, makes it unsuitable for vegetarians and vegans, and still able to bump into the common sensibility, which always progresses. In these years the industries have sought alternatives, using dyes from plants (herbs, vegetables, fruit, flower petals) able to give the same shades and stability. Among the “new” substances we find: safflower extract (a flower with orange petals also known as zafferanone), lycopene obtained from tomatoes, red turnip extract, anthocyanins derived from berries or even turmeric extract or Paprika.
LUCA DI FRANCIA