Part of the Flavor and Sensory school. Class 3 of 6.
The capability: you know which direction your palate moves across a shift, and you correct for it.
Prerequisites: Module 15.
The practice
Build the house sour at open and again at close on the same night. Refrigerate both. Taste them blind the next day.
Do it three times on three different nights.
Then run a duplicate on yourself: the same sample twice in a flight, unlabeled. If you score it differently from itself, you are not currently calibrated, per Module 15.
And practice the reset — water, a neutral bite, a pause — between evaluations, and see whether it narrows the drift.
The reference
Your own open build, which is the closest thing to an uncontaminated reading.
What you are building
Self-knowledge, and it is uncomfortable.
Most bartenders find they build heavier late, and knowing that about yourself is worth more than any correction rule — because a bartender who knows their drift can correct for it and one who does not will build progressively more assertive drinks while every one tastes correct at the moment they taste it.
Verification and boundary
The duplicate. Scoring the same sample differently from itself is the finding.
Boundary: none specific.