An alcoholic yogurt liqueur, a bitter apéritif made from artichokes... how about a concoction featuring wood chips steeped in liquor that is touted as "Dominican Viagra"? It would be difficult to hear about such spirits and not wonder whether the world of bizarre booze is spiraling out of control.
Of course, some of the aforementioned spirits, like the vegetal Cynar, for example, are not new to the scene. Still, that its place behind the contemporary bar probably wouldn't surprise many is certainly worth noting. And beyond the comeback of retro-bizarre spirits, with modern mixologists slinging everything-but-the-kitchen-sink cocktails at top bars in the U.S., the hunt for the next hot trend in liquor has created some frankly unique creations. Such is the case with Root, an all-organic, botanical-loaded spirit with a storied past that has recently made a splash in the New York City bar scene.
Not too long ago, it seems, the prevalence of shock value-spirits was significantly less. Imbibers had relatively few choices on cocktail menus -- drink lists were streamlined, and standard: think gin and tonics, tropical takes on rum-based drinks like the piña colada, and combinations of vodka and fruit juice. Nowadays, though you likely won't find them on top bars' menus, when it comes to vodka, to say that some commercial brands have gone the way of the extreme -- with flavors like scorpion and smoked salmon -- would be a bit of an understatement.
- Alexis Korman, The Daily Meal
More from The Daily Meal:
12 Bars with Ridiculous Names
A Beginner's Guide to Aperitifs
6 Misleading Beverage Labels
What Your "Drink" Says About You on a Date
Drinks to Help Your Body Stay Cool
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Local herb-infused liquors are consumed all over the planet. The fact that we're not familiar with them here in the U.S. means that we have an opportunity to become more worldly and cultured.
I'm not much of a drinker -- I drink maybe three or four times per year -- so I won't be the one blazing that trail, but if I were an aperitif drinker I'd enjoy discovering a new liqueur every month or three, and develop a collection the way my grandmother did. She had a cafe near an air base and I still remember the oddly shaped, interesting bottles that "her boys" at the base brought back to her from their travels overseas. Some of them got one sip and a wrinkled nose, others got emptied over time. It was fun to see all the odd colors and shapes glinting on her sideboard in the sunlight.
My favorite find in recent years was a peach beer I had in Brussels. I've never been a beer fan but the Belgian fruit (lambic processed) beers are very interesting.
From the Wiki: "Lambic with the addition of raspberry (framboise), peach (pêche), blackcurrant (cassis), grape (druif), or strawberry (aardbei), as either whole fruit or syrup. Other, rarer fruit lambic flavorings include apple (pomme), banana (banane), pineapple (ananas), apricot (abricotier), plum (prunier), cloudberry (plaquebière), lemon (citron), and blueberry (bleuet)."
You've mixed together some well-known, long-established spirits that you personally are unaware of, with some simple short-lived gimmicks. And then you mistakenly treat them as the same, and call them weird and bizarre.
Cynar has been around since 1952, since earlier than that actually; it simply went commercial that year. Dairy-based alcoholic beverages like Yogurito are uncommon, but they're found in dairy producing lands of Europe and Asia (kefir, kumis, shubat). Mama Juana has been around for ages, as has Diesus which has been commercially produced since the 1960s.
Those spirits have nothing in common with gimmicks and stunts like spirits infused with bacon, smoked salmon, or weed.
Spend some time exploring cuisines, you will invariably find that many of them have a wealth of wines, spirits, cordials, liqueurs that you're unfamiliar with.
But the fact that you are unfamiliar with them doesn't make them weird, doesn't make them bizarre.