Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Food Quality and Preference journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodqual Sensory acceptability and personality traits both determine which contexts are preferred for consumption of alcoholic cocktails Lapo Pierguidi a , Sara Spinelli a, ⁎ , Caterina Dinnella a , John Prescott a,b , Erminio Monteleone a a Dept. DAGRI – University of Florence, Florence Italy b TasteMatters Research & Consulting, Australia ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Open-ended questions Text analysis Context Involvement Personality traits ABSTRACT Alcoholic cocktails are consumed in very different situations and then consumers may differ in their favorite context to drink a cocktail. Diversity in the preferred context of cocktail consumption may reflect individual differences in taste responsiveness and personality traits as well as cocktail liking. This study aims at: 1) ex- tending the efficacy of a coupled semiotic and statistical methodology for text analysis in uncovering aspects of preferred contexts of cocktail consumption; 2) testing if specific preferred contexts of cocktail consumption are related to individual differences; 3) investigating the relationships between preferred context to have cocktails and patterns of liking for cocktails. 159 cocktails consumers were characterized by personality traits, cocktail involvement, alcoholic beverages intake and PROP taster status and were asked to describe their preferred context to consume an alcoholic cocktail. Consumers were then asked to taste in blind conditions and rate their liking of six alcoholic aperitif cocktails. Three thematic clusters were identified (relax, sociability, aperitif). The relax lovers preferred a comforting context to have a cocktail; these consumers expressed a lower liking for the six evaluated samples than aperitif lovers but resulted more involved with cocktails as compared to the cluster sociability. This latter group of consumers focused on social aspects and novelty; they reported a higher intake of spirits than the cluster aperitif and showed higher scores in sensation seeking and disinhibition than the other clusters. The cluster aperitif described their favorite context as a “before dinner” situation; they were more involved with cocktails than the sociability cluster. Finally, the three clusters did not differ in PROP taster status distribution. The approach has proven to be useful to collect information and to segment consumers on the preferred aspects of cocktail experience. The study showed that consumer clusters with different preferred context for cocktail consumption differ in liking for the cocktails, personality traits, attitudes and alcohol intake. 1. Introduction 1.1. Investigating the context of product consumption The context in which food is consumed has been shown to be an important factor that affects product appreciation (Meiselman, 2006; Schutz, 1994; Schutz, 1988), sample evaluation (Hein, Hamid, Jaeger, & Delahunty, 2010) and the emotions elicited by the product (Piqueras- Fiszman & Jaeger, 2015). Most food testing is conducted in labora- tories, but such controlled experiments can pose problems in predicting whether consumers will actually choose or consume the product in real- life situations (Hellemann & Tuorila, 1991; Meiselman, 1992). To overcome these limitations, several methodologies have been devel- oped to make product evaluations more similar to real-life contexts and to evaluate the effect of different consumption contexts on product preference and acceptability (Meiselman, 2019). Hence, settings that aim to better approximate natural eating si- tuations while in controlled environments (context-enhanced Central Location Test) have been employed to study contextual effects, thereby avoiding the loss of scientific control due to the use of field locations or home use tests (Jaeger & Porcherot, 2017). One interesting approach is based on immersion in a context during consumer tests in sensory la- boratories. Usually, the immersion is based on written scenarios, that briefly describe a situation that consumers are asked to imagine. Evoked contexts have become a valuable tool in product testing as they can provide a frame of reference during sample evaluation. This methodology has been found to be effective and discriminating among products (Äström, Gilbert, Köster, Mojet, & Wendin, 2011; Hein et al., 2010; Hein, Hamid, Jaeger, & Delahunty, 2012; Hersleth, Monteleone, Segtnan, & Næs, 2015; Köster, 2003; Piqueras-Fiszman & Jaeger, 2014). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2020.103978 Received 1 December 2019; Received in revised form 11 May 2020; Accepted 12 May 2020 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental and Forestry (DAGRI), University of Florence, Italy. E-mail address: sara.spinelli@unifi.it (S. Spinelli). Food Quality and Preference 85 (2020) 103978 Available online 14 May 2020 0950-3293/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T