Why You Should Keep Club Soda Around During A Dinner Party

Hosting a dinner party for friends and family is a life milestone. When you trade in the glory days of bar crawls for sophisticated evenings filled with dining and discussion (and enough bottles of wine for a dinner party, because hey, you're still the life of the party), you're entering a chic new era. Although the pillars of a great gathering are ambiance and good eats, there are some clever tips and tricks that can elevate the experience. In addition to your go-to assortment of refreshments, consider offering club soda to your guests, but not for the reasons you might suspect.

Club soda is a zippy and refreshing drink and cocktail mixer, but it's also an effective palate cleanser. This category includes edible or sippable substances that reset your taste buds between courses. If you're eating a rack of ribs and quickly transition to a delicate-tasting lemon posset, the lingering umami flavor can disrupt the quality of the decadent dessert. Like suds, the bubbles in club soda have a cleansing effect on the tongue and mouth that lifts away any flavors to reset your sense of taste. Similarly, the small amount of carbonic acid induced by carbonation can gently cut through and neutralize any residual fats, oils, or rich flavors, leaving your mouth feeling refreshed and primed for the next course. Because they are all forms of carbonated water, this simple club soda hack also works with sparkling water, tonic, and seltzer water.

Although it's an ingenious dinner party hack, club soda isn't the only palate cleanser that can refresh the taste buds between dinner courses. But how do other options stack up to fizzy water?

Although fresh herbs like basil, mint, and cilantro are great palate cleansers, they aren't exactly practical options for a dinner party. A few sips of club soda is far more accessible than eating a fistful of raw herbs after your appetizer. Plain, unsalted crackers are also commonly used as a palate cleanser. However, using crackers to cleanse palates at a dinner party might fill up your guests before your famous pan-seared steak can, which makes them better suited for wine tastings. Citrus fruits like lemon and lime are other tried-and-true palate cleansers, but you'll have to take the time to cut and prepare them before the party. To avoid the extra work, buying a pack of club soda and putting the beverage over ice is far more convenient. Plus, your dinner guests won't wind up with sticky citrus fingers when they take a sip of soda.

If you're feeling creative, consider making a palate-cleansing cocktail that combines some of the ingredients listed above. Gin, club soda or tonic water, and lemon is a timeless and sophisticated combination. So, the next time you're hosting a dinner party, give your guests the gift of tasting every detail of your carefully crafted dishes by offering them the option of sipping on club soda in between each course.