Drink

Have You Tried Whiskey Made With Beaver Sac Secretions?

12 Jun, 2018

The words ‘beaver’ and ‘secretions’ are not two words you see together very often, especially within the world of fine drinks, yet here we are again, treated to another magic ingredient for a new booze. (If you read our piece on vagina beer, you’ll know what we mean).

Eau de Musc: A Beaver Sac Spirit

The product is a whisky, or rather, a whiskey as it’s from Tamworth Distillery in New Hampshire, USA that unlike vagina beer, appears to be a very real and very not ironic product you can actually buy. Eau de Musc owes its unique depth of flavour to a substance called castoreum: a secretion from a sac found just under the beaver’s tail and in this case, is harvested by a lovely man called Anton. Now, this apparently isn’t as bonkers as it sounds. No honestly, it isn’t, because castoreum has been used in some perfumes and, somewhat disturbingly, in vanilla flavouring, for years. The distillery’s own website describes the beaver secretion as exhibiting “bright and fruitful qualities, as well as rich leathery notes, along with a creamy vanilla aroma. These notes are also very common among barrel-aged spirits, so a natural progression took place.” Of course a ‘natural progression’ took place. WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?

PHOTO CREDIT: http://tamworthdistilling.com/

Tamworth goes on to explain that this quirky secretion is one of the stranger substances allowed on the list of FDA certified ingredients, so it’s not going to harm anyone. Fair enough. I personally might have chosen a more delicious name than Beaver Sac Spirit though – oh, and left off ANY REFERENCE TO BEAVER SACS at all – or any sac for that matter.

Sorry, I’m shouting.

Anyway you can find our all about Tamworth’s Eau de Musc on their website here. Thank you very much, Drinks Business for bringing this  to our attention in your original news story here. I’ll never look at vanilla in the same way again…

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