Most tricks focus on sight, some focus on hearing (like the tuning fork), even fewer focus on touch, but smell and taste are neglected in magic. Now, I realize that a spectator asked to taste something might be reluctant, and for good reason, but lets ignore this for a moment. What could be done to trick the senses of smell and taste?

Sweet Salt, Slydini

Robert-Houdin caused a lady's borrowed, monogrammed handkerchief to vanish and appear inside a tin box buried outside under an oak tree. The box, when opened, let out the unmistakable smell of brimstone.

Robert-Houdin also used the smell of ether to enhance his suspension of his son.

Zach! Tactile, olfactory, and gustatory are all SUBJECTIVE. That's one of the big reasons that there are so few of those EFFECTS.

Pop has given you several examples of olfactory illusions.

I do a brief routine in my school show to "explain" how our senses help create illusion. I do several optical illusions (the old "boomerang sticks" and also the "What's Next" (Tenyo) card. I also demo one tactile illusion, which the whole audience can try--and fool themselves.

Oops! I meant "OLFACTORY" (the HOUDIN handkerchief transposition) and "GUSTATORY" (SLYDINI'S Sweet Salt.

The ether did not contribute to the actual ILLUSION. but, as Pop Haydn noted, it ENHANCED the effect. (PRESENTATION!!!)

BTW: TASTE AND SMELL are closely related. When one's nasal passages are "obstructed" by a cold, food does not taste the same!

Although I use the illusion routine for all ages, it's particularly effective for a high school audience. I wrote up the routine in my book, with patter (hate that word!)and presentation.

Adolescents often come into the auditorium expecting to see "Uncle Bozo" do the sort of tricks that they have seen at a little kid's birthday party. I need to "get them" quickly, so I open with a MILD sucker trick in which they soon realize that "clever" sleight of hand is involved (color changing silk thru hand) and then while they're still laughing, I "explain" how the magic is "happening" IN THEIR MINDS, due to their fallible senses. The rope routine of knots, Professor's Nightmare, and "my" Norwegian YOYO, which follows, "sets the hook", and, the perverse "antics" of the golf ball which follows the rope, helps them to further realize, that I'm not doing going to show them "trick boxes". The rope routine, and the ball routine are in my book, also.

This has slightly "high jacked" your thread, but, I thought that it might help.

I am impressed by the depth of your thinking. Too many young magicians only see the "top of the ocean"! I think that, if you continue, you will develop into a really fine performer!

Thanks, I haven't heard of sweet salt, I'll look at that. And thanks Dick, that means a lot coming from you.

In Sweet Salt, Slydini would announce he was going to make a handful of salt vanish from a spectator's own hand. He poured salt in the spectator's hand, had the spectator taste it and close his hand. Magic gesture, and the salt was still there. "Taste it." The spectator now has a handful of sugar.

Aroma by Hondo

http://www.penguinmagic.com/p/8877

The word lemon makes my mouth water which is quite magical. One could feed a chick a tasty morsel and make it lay an egg like the great Luxor Gali Gali. Or one could feed a Toady a poisonous frog and cure him but that might be bad taste. There is the teapot trick, where the company calls for a drink.

I’d think issues with an effect including taste would be it doesn’t play big...one, tow, or a few people tasting something isn’t easily related to others. Also, taking something and putting it their mouth is requires a high level of trust on behalf of spectator. Who want to eat something given to them by somebody who tricks people?

Who wouldn't buy a bottle of Pop's snakes oil?

Morgan Strebler's Taste Conditions

Kenton Knepper suggested using suggestion to make a person taste burnt toast. You could use those techniques to do all sorts of taste/smell tricks.

I do a version of an effect called "The Third Choice" by Corinda straight out of the 13 Steps book. I use cards upon which are written different flavors of chicken wings. The cards are placed in opaque envelopes and after being shuffled by the spectator one envelope is chosen. The word on the card in the chosen envelope matches the "prediction wings" that I actually purchased from pizza hut and brought to the performance. The spectator then can have the wings to eat and/or share.

This routine includes the sense of taste and smell as I go through and describe all the different flavors I wrote on each card. It's s pretty easy effect that incorporates different senses then the ones we usually use.

There was a Pro Mystic effect that allowed you to have a spectator take a sip of one of 5 different liquids and you could sense that taste time after time.