Top 10 strangest cocktail ingredients

The weird and wonderful world of mixology has encroached into ever more bizarre territories over recent years – here are the top 10 strangest cocktail ingredients.

Chicken bones and pig’s blood are both included in our roundup the top 10 strangest cocktail ingredients

From chicken bones to whale skin, and from gunpowder to “distilled clay”, today’s bartenders are experimenting with increasingly unusual cocktail ingredients.

As consumer interest in gastronomic bartending and molecular mixology has risen, bartenders seeking to test industry boundaries to have found an enthusiastic market for their creative output.

These maverick mixologists from across the world have continued to send shock waves through the on-tade, and occasionally encountered controversy along the way.

Click through the following pages to see our roundup of the top 10 strangest cocktail ingredients.

Think we’ve missed out a particularly unusual ingredient? Leave a comment below.

Chicken bone

Created by mixology maverick Ryan Chetiyawardana, the Bone Dry Martini, made with real chicken bones, features on the creative menu at White Lyan, based in Hoxton, East London.

To create the cocktail, a roasted chicken bone is dissolved in phosphoric acid, a dash of which is added to the bar’s naked vodka martini consisting of Mr Lyan house-made vodka and a lemon distillate.

White Lyan has made waves across the global bartending scene since it opened in October last year with its strict “no perishables” rule, banning the use of citrus and ice in favour of pre-batched cocktails and house-made only spirits.

Pizza crust

Pioneers of the savoury cocktail trend, the bartenders at London’s Bunga Bunga have taken the craze one step further with the creation of a pizza cocktail made with pizza crust-infused gin.

The cocktail, called Margherita not Margarita, consists of Gin Mare gin infused with Bunga Bunga pizza crusts, tomato Juice cooked with onions, basil, oregano, black pepper and salt, lemon Juice, and warm Burrata cheese foam used to top up the drink

It is comprised of three layers: first the infused gin must be measured into the glass, followed by the warmed, homemade tomato juice and then topped with the cheese foam.

Pig’s blood

Trendy Soho venue The Talented Mr Fox has taken a very literal approach to the classic Bloody Mary cocktail by adding a dose of real pig’s blood.

As well as pig’s blood, the venue’s staple Bloody Mary consists of: black pudding, clarified tomato juice, spiced hydrosol and vodka.

Creative mind behind the serve and the Talented Mr Fox himself, Matt Whiley, cools the black pudding and vodka in a sous vide bag at 80 degrees for 24 hours. A pig’s blood and black pudding distillate is then created before adding spiced tomato juice which is double filtered.

Whale skin

Popular Hackney venue Nightjar found itself in a spot of hot water in 2012 after its premises were raided by authorities following a tip-off the bar sold a cocktail containing whale skin.

The bar’s Moby Dick cocktail contained “a small amount of whisky infused with a single 2cm by 5cm strip of dried whale skin”.

However, EU law bans the hunting and trading of cetaceans such as whales, forcing the bar to apologise and swiftly remove the controversial mix from its menu.

Amputated toe

A somewhat macabre addition to this list, an amputated toe is the star ingredient in a Canadian bar’s famous Sour Toe Cocktail.

The Downtown Hotel in Dawson City has been made famous by its signature serve – a shot of whisky containing a pickled human toe – which drinkers travel from far and wide to sample.

The tradition is not for patrons to consume the toe, but to let it touch their lips as they drink – swallowing the toe incurs a US$500 fine.

Gunpowder

Sydney Hilton’s Zeta Bar pays homage to the history the UK’s very own “big smoke” – London – with its Gunpowder Plot cocktail.

A creative mix of gunpowder infused gin, Fernet Branca, spiced gunpowder syrup and dandelion & burdock bitters and served in a smoking cloche, amidst a pile of smoking gunpowder, twigs and oak scented fog, the cocktail was Inspired by Guy Fawkes’ attempt to ignite barrels of gunpowder beneath the Houses of Parliament in London in 1605.

Ambergris

A further offering from the ever-imaginative folks at White Lyan, the Moby Dick Sazerac is another cocktail to make use of a whale by-product – namely ambergris, a solid, waxy, flammable substance produced in the digestive system of sperm whales.

The ambergris is broken down in neutral grain spirit, the tincture is then aged and used as part of the pre-batched sazerac recipe.

Other ingredients included in the Moby Dick Sazerac include Mr Lyan Rye, Peychaud’s bitters, and absinthe rice.

Cigar

With a name like Experimental Cocktail Club, it will probably come as no surprise to see this speakeasy-style London bar on this list.

The venue’s Havana cocktail evokes the heavy scents of Cuba by including a cigar-infused Buffalo Trace Bourbon as its base spirit.

Originally created by Shaun Layton, of Vancouver’s L’Abottoir, other ingredients in the cocktail include marsala, Angostura bitters and a “smokey Islay rinse”.

Clay

Iconic “bar with no name” 69 Colebrooke Row – led by revered mixology maestro Tony Conigliaro – offers an unusal cocktail which uses “distilled clay”.

Other ingredients included in the Terroir cocktail, described as a “playful take on Terroir wine”, include flint and lichen – served straight from the bottle.

The mix is created at the bar’s in-house laboratory, which also creates Guinness reduction, paprika bitters, rhubarb cordial and pine-infused gin.

Swarovski crystal ring

Although not an edible constituent part of a cocktail, a Swarovski crystal ring is featured in the Velvet Goldmine milkshake cocktail served at Hollywood bar The Powder Room.

Created by mixologist Adrian Biggs, the bar’s signature milkshake cocktail, costing a cool US$500 contains a range of premium spirits, Belgian chocolates, and features a keepsake Swarovski Nirvana Montana ring as a keepsake.