The most unusual spirits base ingredients

The spirits industry is full of bizarre botanicals and quirky infusions, but this list of unusual base ingredients shows strangeness can be traced right back to the point of distillation.

These are some of the most unusual base spirits ingredients out there

Look back through the history of spirits, and you will see that almost anything that is fermentable is distillable. The drinkability of these products is, however, another question entirely.

But some pioneering producers have taken bold moves and opted to swap traditional grains and molasses for unusual base ingredients such as tea leaves, milk and even pasteurised human tears.

Some of these quirky spirits are a one time only offering (human tears, unsurprisingly, are not the most sustainable product base), but the majority of products included in this list form part of a distillery’s core range.

We have already brought you the most bizarre cocktail ingredients and strange gin botanicals, but click through the following pages to discover what unusual ingredients have been used to form the very core of vodka, rum and whiskey.

If you think any uncommon base spirit ingredients have been missed off this list, let us know by leaving a comment below.

Milk

One Dorset farmer turned a few heads in 2013 when he unveiled the world’s first vodka distilled entirely from milk. Produced by Jason Barber using milk from his 250-strong herd of dairy cows, Black Cow Vodka is described as a “smooth vodka with a unique creamy character”. It is made by separating milk into curds and whey, with the curds going on to make cheese and the whey fermented into beer using a “special yeast” that converts milk sugar into alcohol. This is then distilled, triple filtered and hand-bottled. Similarly, New Zealand’s Milk Money Vodka is twice distilled from milk, promising “udder satisfaction”.

Human tears

Ever dependable for pushing the boundaries of experimentation in food and drink, innovative duo Bompas & Parr (pictured) hosted a workshop last year where participants had the opportunity to distill a part of themselves… giving an entirely new meaning to drinking your emotions. At the pair’s Alcoholic Architecture pop up bar in Borough Market, London, participants created cocktail bitters from three different types of pasteurised tears – basal, reflex and psychic. Using various methods such as massage and menthol, these tears were extracted from participants and then distilled. Those taking part then selected their own blend of aromatic herbs and spices to infuse or tincture in a high-proof spirit.

Tea leaves

Last year, Bacardi unveiled a “groundbreaking” process whereby complex sugars can be extract from tea leaves, allowing them to be fermentable and, as such, distillable. Using this process, the group has created Tang – thought to be the world’s first spirit distilled from tea leaves. Once the mash has been created, it is distilled and blended to heighten certain flavours, before being diluted with French spring water. The “bold and fragrant” spirit, produced in small batches, has been designed to complement Chinese food and is exclusively available in China.

Sweet potato (in rum!)

Potato may not be a unique base ingredient for distillation, but the use of sweet potato to make rum – pretty much exclusively created from sugar cane molasses or sugar cane juice – is certainly unusual. Following on from the launch of what was thought to be the world’s first sweet potato vodka, a new UK company unveiled its inaugural range of spirits created by triple distilling the flesh of sweet potatoes sourced from North Carolina. The Sweet Potato Spirit Company’s Sweet Potato Spiced Rum distills a combination or sugar cane molasses and sweet potato, giving a flavour of ginger, treacle, lemon blossom, warm spices and caramel.

Maple sap

US-based independent distillery Vermont Spirits is well known for its experimentation with local agricultural ingredients, using everything from whey and apples to the sap from maple trees to form the base of its products. The distillery’s Vermont Gold Vodka is said to capture the “very essence of Vermont” with its use of maple tree sap, which is fermented and batch-distilled in a glass fractionating column still before being “lightly filtered”.

Black-eyed peas

In 2010 a family of black-eyed pea farmers from Mulshoe, Texas, sought alternative uses for their crop following a year of drought and declining sales. The result was unveiled four years later in the form the world’s first vodka distilled from black-eyed peas – TreyMark Vodka. The product is created using the starch rich black-eyed peas to create fermented mash, which is then distilled into vodka. Trey Nickels, his mother Deborah Nickels and distilling consultant Sherman Owens worked together to experiment with distillation methods. They discovered the most effective process to create vodka from black-eyed peas is based on a method developed in China to extract starch from mung beans. After this, the same distillation procedure as those using corn or potatoes is followed to create TreyMark Vodka.

Tree bark

Touted as the world’s first non-alcoholic distilled spirit, Seedlip is made using six individually distilled ingredients, including two barks – American Oak and Bahamian Cascarilla – as well as spices and citrus peel. The product was developed botanists, distillers and historians as a “sophisticated alternative” to alcoholic drinks. Sugar-free, sweetener-free and calorie-free, Seedlip can be served as a G&T substitute with tonic and grapefruit twist, or short with dashes or brine and verjuice as part of an alternative ‘Martini’.

Quinoa

South American grain quinoa has been used to make both whiskey and vodka in recent years. In addition to the more traditional malted barely, it is distilled by experimental US craft distillery Corsair to create Corsair quinoa whiskey, which uses red and white quinoa grains to create an “earthy and nutty flavour”. Fair Vodka also uses a “proprietary production process”, fermenting and distilling quinoa sourced from the Andean mountains.