If You Ever Wanted To Taste Whiskey Made With Crabs, Now's Your Chance
If you're a fan of brown spirits, then you've likely sipped your fair share of whiskey or whisky (depending on the origin) whether neat or stirred into a cocktail such as a Manhattan or a whiskey sour. With a long, tried-and-true history in the United States (via the Distilled Spirits Council), whiskey is a distilled liquor obtained from the fermented mash of various cereals including rye, corn, barley, and wheat, then aged in oak barrels for a minimum of two and up to 50 years (via BlackTailNYC). Because the aging spirits draw flavor from their wooden barrels, whiskey turns out deep and complex in taste, with notes that can include coconut, caramel, vanilla, cinnamon, and brown sugar, according to Barrell Craft Spirits — and that's before adding any additional flavoring elements.
In the United States, there's a pretty wide range of flavored whiskeys on the market, from salted herring to chipotle to peanut butter (via Forbes). And there's one American distillery in particular that has made a name for itself producing particularly out-there flavored whiskeys, including beaver castor sacs and roasted turkey, whose new offering is intriguingly flavored with green crabs. Yes, you read that right.
Crab Trapper whiskey is a way to help address an invasion of green crabs
Located in Tamworth, New Hampshire, Tamworth Distilling writes on its website that it takes pride in sourcing its ingredients from its immediate surroundings, and its newest whiskey, flavored with green crabs, is no exception. As explained by the Associated Press (AP), the brand's Crab Trapper whiskey is flavored with real crabs fished off the coast of the state, boiled down by the distillery into a highly concentrated crab broth, then fortified with alcohol and distilled to remove any overly fishy flavors. This flavor base, along with a corn and spice mixture, is then added to a cask of bourbon which has been aging for several years.
The resulting whiskey, according to Tamworth only has a light flavor of shellfish accompanied by coriander, bay, maple, and vanilla (via Tamworth Distilling). And as Tamworth distiller Matt Power told AP, Crab Trapper wasn't created simply to be whimsical, but also to help address a big problem of invasive green crabs in the area's coastal waters. Since being introduced to Cape Cod in the mid-1800s, the AP reports, the crabs have taken over New England waters, pressuring native species as they compete for food and shelter. While it won't solve the problem, the distillery's use of the crabs is a step toward managing the area's green crab population.
A crab boil-flavored spirit that supports its local ecosystem? Color us intrigued.