What I remember from fan forums and stuff is the idea that replicator limitations are more due to storage capacity than the replication technology itself. We know that patterns for humans when transporting are so large they can only be kept in a pattern buffer that has to keep refreshing the pattern, and can usually only do so temporarily, as they “degrade.” We also saw how it overwrote the holodeck memory when DS9 tried to save the patterns, and they still seemed to be under a time crunch.
It makes sense that any patterns for replicated items are stored with some level of lossy compression, that is designed to not be detected by humans, ala JPEGs. It definitely isn’t fine enough resolution that anything living can be replicated–that’s one of the explicit limitations. Some of the nuances could be lost, and there would be limited space for varieties. Note how Picard doesn’t specify, say, the ripeness of the bergamot when he gets his Earl Gray, nor does Janeway say anything about which beans for her coffee.
There’s also what “synthehol” reveals about the replicators. They say this is all that’s available on starships, with any alcohol having to be brought in from outside. Since ethanol is such a simple molecule, this suggests that the replicators were programmed this way. If they leave out alcohol, that could imply that they also would leave out less healthy options.
So, yeah, I bet that replicated food can wind up tasting different than the real thing. And, as long as there is a difference, there are going to be people who prefer that which is less common.
And all of the people who drink only synthehol-based beverages swear that it tastes just like the real thing, but anyone who actually knows actual alcohol finds it spit-take disgusting.
Of course, if it tastes that far off from actual alcohol, one is led to wonder why they even have “synthehol” at all, instead of just using DHMO.
If millions of (fictional) people think synthehol tastes good then it does taste good. They’re not lying.
Whether it tastes like “the real thing” is a different question. There’s a school of thought that posits that by the 23rd century no one knows what most foods are “supposed to taste like”. WWIII and radiation and devastation ruined the flavors of foods and spices. People try to remember, but the details are forever lost. Like trying to replicate the Sistine chapel from a grainy B&W photo.
The stated reason is that it somewhat simulates drunkenness. The effects are just “easier to shake off,” making is safer for consumption on a starship.
Exactly what that means hasn’t been elaborated on, but I take it to mean the effects are weaker and don’t last very long. I’ve also thought it may get eliminated more quickly when adrenaline rises.
Though I’ve also considered that it has little to no effect at all, but tastes close enough so that it induces a placebo effect. They tell everyone it actually does something, like in those experiments with college students and non-alcoholic beer, where they all start acting buzzed if they think it’s real.
I read a novel in which fancy restaurants of the future try to recreate the “American picnic” lunch - served in a covered basket with their best guesses of what ketchup and coke of the 20th century tasted like.
Well, obviously, it’s an acquired taste (which Scotty never acquired). But my point is, it obviously tastes very different from real alcohol (which is also often an acquired taste), and yet it’s meant to be a replacement for it.
I’ve never heard that it’s supposed to still be intoxicating, just less so. Does anyone have a cite for that? But even in that case, the easiest way to go would be to just replace some of the ethanol with water.
Closest I can get. It seems to me that if you can make an “alcohol” with no deleterious effects, you could probably make it taste like whatever you wanted. There’s a lot of people who don’t like the taste of any alcoholic beverages, so it seems to to me they should at least have a variant of synthehol that actually tastes good without being an “acquired taste”.
It’s from the TNG episode Relics, the one with Scotty in it. He orders a scotch in Ten Forward, and says it tastes bad. Data helpfully chimes in saying “I believe I may be of some assistance. Captain Scott is unaware of the existence of synthehol. […] It is an alcohol substitute now being served aboard starships. It simulates the appearance, taste and smell of alcohol, but the intoxicating affects can be easily dismissed.”
The bolding is mine. Data doesn’t say it has no effects, but that they are “easily dismissed.” It is my own interpretation that such effects would thus likely be lesser.
In the episode where Picard visits his brother Robert (a vintner) in France, the latter complains you can’t even get a buzz from synthehol (or words to that effect).
What Robert says to Picard is “Careful. You’re not used to drinking the real thing. This synthehol never leaves you out of control, is that so?” to which Jean-Luc agrees. Robert then reminds him that his real wine will.
I’ve always interpreted that as saying that there is some effect, but not enough that the person loses control. It’s the same idea as the effects being “easily dismissed.”
That’s absurd. None of the traditional foods are high tech at all, and even a widespread nuclear war wouldn’t remove humanity’s capacity to make beer, wine, ice cream, cheese, cured meats, soy sauce, etc… What you might lose would be specific recipes- they might be stabbing in the dark in the 23rd century at how to properly make a Baked Alaska, or how to specifically make something like cheddar cheese, or even how to make a specific wine, beer or distilled spirit that was the same as the predecessors. But it would be similar enough. I mean, they might not get a bourbon exactly right, but it would clearly be whiskey, and clearly be alcoholic. It might just have too much malted barley, or not enough corn or something, because they didn’t know better. But it’s not like they’d make rum and think they were making bourbon.
Yes, but do they bother? When Worf entered a security override so the fake Irishman could get real alcohol from the replicator, Danilo orders “whiskey.” No further qualifier. What did the computer produce?
Although it is never explicitly described in show, in the extended canon, Costco Pepsi Beam Suntory emerged from the Post-Atomic Horror is the only producer of consumer goods and beverages, and maintains a monopolistic stranglehold on all of the patented replicator patterns available to the Starfleet. As a result, all “whiskey”, regardless of the style specified in the order, is a flavor reflecting a blend of Jim Beam Kentucky Dram, Canadian Club Bottom Barrel, and something called Kessler, which produces a beverage that is almost, but not entirely unlike anything a 20th century aficionado would recognize as any form of whiskey. This is why Romulan Ale, despite being made for a species that is so incompatible with humans that they actually use some kind of hemocyanin molecule for oxygen transport, is so prized and prohibited; as bad as it must be, it is at least a novel product that wasn’t made by the people who brought you Crystal Pepsi. Just be glad that the Coca-Cola Corporation lost the Eugenics Wars when it pegged its deterrence strategy on the triad of Fanta, Glacéau, Tab Clear.
That’s just a TV relic; think about all the times in modern-day shows when they order “a beer” or some other alcoholic drink without specifying brand or style or anything else. Nobody actually does that in the real world- they usually specify brand and/or style at the least, unless they’re ordering a specific named mixed drink or cocktail.
I’d bet that most food replicators would prompt the user for specifics- Irish, Scotch, Bourbon or Rye at the very least if unqualified “whiskey” was ordered.
I would assume that the replicator would have defaults for most food options. If someone just asked for “whiskey”, it would just give them whatever the default whiskey was (probably based on which variety was most popular with some focus group). For many foods, the user would have the option to be more specific, if they didn’t like whatever the default was.
Similarly, you can order “a cheeseburger”, without specifying what kind of cheese, or the size of the patty, or whether you want lettuce and tomatoes. You can specify those things if you want, but if you just say “a cheeseburger”, you’ll get a cheeseburger of some sort.
I agree with this, and further propose that different people might be able to set defaults for their own tastes. It could be different based on the replicator or voice prints. And I bet the captain and/or the chef/food specialist could tweak it to their liking.
(I expect that someone who like “tea, Earl Grey, hot” probably has some other specifics about how the tea would have been made. There’s too much disagreement on how to make hot tea.)