I almost forgot the worst offender Patron! Had a corked 1.5 at our wedding for the shot ski, we could not even make margaritas out if it. Their carks are known for it.
“I see corked people”
Some restaurants have it in their tap water - must be mold growth in the tubing. Most recently had it in canned soup.
The Sierra Mist from the fountain at a local fast food joint. And chunks of cantaloupe from a local grocery store.
Mark West Springs Rd
Packaged broccoli is about as bad as carrot pieces, and probably for the same reason, a chlorinated wash.
I smell TCA frequently on pallets and boxes from overseas. I suspect bleach used as a disinfectant treatment.
P Hickner
I actually had a corked glass of water at an Asian restaurant today. It was very strange - i could not tell if it was the water, ice, glass, or straw but I pretty much left in on the table without drinking it.
Definitely the baby carrots and I have been told (by someone unfamiliar with TCA) that they’re washed in a chlorine solution,
So I started buying organic baby carrots that aren’t washed in a chlorine bath, and they don’t smell or taste of TCA.
I had a banana from a convenience store one time that had raging TCA… Must have been the shipping box?
Municipal water systems can go through mold or algae blooms, where for months the water tastes and smells moldy. I’ve seen it a few times in different cities.
I don’t know that it’s actual TCA, but maybe that happens too.
I’m sure there’s a pretty extensive range of causes for weird tastes that can get into municipal water. The “earthy” in that article brought to mind geosmin. But, I had in mind a couple local restaurants. Same water source as my house. One, downtown MV, where I’d been to many neighboring restaurants in the same time frame. They poured from a bar station, so I think it’s the tubing right there. The other place, quite recently a month apart. They serve water with a lemon wedge, which they didn’t used to. I know of a case where TCA was in the cold water from someone’s kitchen sink, but not the hot. Switching out the hose solved the problem.
I’ve had a corked Taj Mahal beer. I also smelled TCA once in CDG airport.
There are a lot of halophenols present in the environment either directly through halogenated pesticides, particularly but not exclusively where wood is being treated, or fire-retardants or e.g. produced from the use of bleach in contact with phenolic compounds like wood - or cork.
This wide variety of halogenated products can be converted to haloanisoles like TCA, TBA TeCA et al by the action of a range of moulds and some bacteria also widely present in the environment which explains the presence of haloanisoles in the wide range of products mentioned in this thread - from water supplies to wooden chips used in gardens and play areas to wooden cellars, barrels, pallets, packaged vegetables [the plastic and cardboard packaging is attractive to halophenols] which can be affected directly following cleansing with chlorinated water or from packaging that has adsorbed some halophenol. And bearing in mind the tiny quantities necessary for the aroma to be noticeable to most people any contact direct or airborne widens the subjects affected - hence ‘corked’ people et al.
Shipping containers are also cited as a source of contamination of products like fruit with pallets being a likely primary input to the containers.
I hear Australian airports eliminated that problem years ago.
We see the corked boxes pretty frequently from Argentina. Not sure what is going on there, but same thing others have described- boxes reek, bottles and labels smell, wine on the inside is fine.
I’ve had corked bananas and garlic. Tried to cook with the garlic anyway. The smell and taste did not go away. I could only imagine taking them back to the store and trying to explain to customer service why I was returning the product.
Cantaloupe
I just grubhubbed some tex mex and my fountain comes that showed up (both of them) are very badly corked… Oddly enough I don’t mind it that much in the Coke…
most city/treated water is corked for my schnozz.
It’s so off putting I have to order bottled.
Nigel-
It might be an urban (or rural?) legend, but I’ve heard of new French Oak barrels becoming TCA-contaminated in shipping containers.
that sounds more like an urban legend. I’ve worked with 3-400 imported bbls a year and never had a corked one. It definitely lives in pallets and other pressure treated wood - but the shipping containers filled to the brim with barrels stacked in a rather precarious and dangerous way would never have a pallet taking up valuable space stored with them. The containers are loaded at the cooperages, so they’d never be exposed to the environment in transit. Just ridiculous heat.