What would be the most disgusting substance you could imagine flavouring
your wine with? Well, I'm sure baby mice would not come too far off?
Baby mice wine is a traditional Chinese health drink, which is brewed by
drowning alive baby mice, maximum three days old, in rice moonshine and
letting them to ferment in the bottle for about a year. According to
local Chinese belief, mouse wine is a cure to just about any illness
imaginable, including asthma and liver problems among others.
Pizza Beer
In 2006, Tom and Athena Seefurth wanted to create a beer that would
“pair with our favorite food.” Pizza beer was born. The couple has since
gone commercial, hand-chopping the hundreds of pounds of wheat crust,
garlic, oregano, tomato, and basil for their malty concoction. But you
won't need to chew to down the brew; pizza beer is 100 percent
debris-free-the ingredients are filtered after steeping, leaving just a
soupçon of the “essence of pizza.”
Squirrel Beer
Our old buddies BrewDog have done it again. Not content with winning
back the "strongest beer in the world" title with its Sink the
Bismarck!, they've now upped their game with a new brew that is 55
percent alcohol by volume and carries a $765 price tag. It's called The
End of History. Oh, and did we mention that the bottles come in stuffed
animals-like stuffed animals that were once alive? The 12 bottles have
been made featuring seven dead stoats (a kind of weasel), four squirrels
and one rabbit. James Watt, one of the two guys behind BrewDog, put it
better than we ever could: "The impact of The End of History is a
perfect conceptual marriage between taxidermy, art and craft brewing."
Just like we've all been waiting for! For those interested in the actual
beer, it's a blond Belgian ale with touches of nettles and juniper
berries -- and in order to achieve the brain-blasting alcohol content,
it had to be created using extreme freezing techniques.
Platinum and White Gold Tequila
Can you imagine spending $225,000 on a beverage? On July 20, 2006,
Tequila Ley .925 sold a single Platinum and White Gold tequila bottle
for $225,000 to a private collector in Mexico City, Mexico. The liquor
was made out of 100% blue Agave liquid and was aged for six years. The
company won the Guinness Book of World Records title for the most
expensive bottle of liquor sold in the world. For those of us who can't
afford the Platinum bottle, the company also sells the Gold and Platinum
bottle for $150,000 and the Silver & Gold bottle for $25,000.
Snake Wine
Snake wine is an alcoholic beverage that includes a whole venomous snake
in the bottle. It originated in Vietnam and can be found around
Southeast Asia. The snakes, preferably venomous ones, are not usually
preserved for their meat but to have the snake poison dissolved in the
liquor. However, the snake venom is denatured by the ethanol; its
proteins are unfolded and therefore inactivated. The snake is often
placed with many smaller snakes, turtles, insects, or birds, and left to
steep for many months. The wine is drunk as a restorative in small
shots or cups. Snakes are widely believed to possess medicinal qualities
and the wine is often advertised to cure everything from farsightedness
to
hair loss, as well as to increase sexual performance. However, many of these claims are likely exaggerated to attract buyers.
Bacon Vodka
We love making our own flavored spirits at home, but properly capturing
bacon is a bit of a challenge. Now, thanks to Seattle's Black Rock
Spirits, we have Bakon Vodka! This is an unusual premium spirit with a
familiar flavor; Bakon is the only vodka on the market that captures the
meaty, peppery flavor of just-cooked bacon while maintaining a crisp,
clean profile. Perfect for making a rich Bloody Mary, it also begs for
experimentation with creative mixology.
Pulque
Pulque, or octli, is a milk-colored, somewhat viscous alcoholic beverage
made from the fermented sap of the maguey plant, and is a traditional
native beverage of Mexico.[1] The drink's history extends far back into
the Mesoamerican period, when it was considered sacred, and its use was
limited to certain classes of people. After the Spanish Conquest of
Mexico, the drink became secular and its consumption rose.
Three-Lizard Liquor
What's more bizarre than a drink with a dead animal in it? Answer: a
drink with several dead animals in it! Meet this Asian three-lizard
liquor. In the Chinese and Vietnamese villages where this liquor is
commonly made, less isn't more. More is more. You see,
lizards--particularly geckos--are believed to have powerful energy (also
known in Chinese as "qi"). So theoretically, the more geckos you stuff
inside the bottle, the more energy you can absorb while getting drunk.
Besides that, many locals also believe that Asian three-lizard liquor
prevents evil spirits from doing you harm, what else could you ask?
Chocolate Donut Stout
Chocolate flavoured beer is actually pretty common; Sapporo, the
Japanese beer company, brewed its Chocolate Brewery with real Royce
chocolates but the Shenadoah Brewing Co. have taken it one step further
with chocolate donut stout! This is a double chocolate stout — made
using chocolate malts and actual chocolate — with essence of donut added
by top-secret method.
Yogurito
This tangy, yogurt-based liquor may be made in Holland and bottled in
France, but its target market is strictly Japan. Drunk straight or mixed
with orange or pineapple juice, the creamy, fruity-sweet combo is
especially popular among the health-conscious. But when asked about the
calcium content of Yogurito, a Suntory representative remarked,
“Yogurito is made from yogurt and tastes like yogurt, but is not yogurt.
We cannot say that it's healthy.”
McLobster
