Top 10 bizarre body-based drinks

From whale secretions and beard yeast to pig’s blood and porn stars, the drinks trade has thrown up all manner of bizarre beverages in recent years.

Some of the following drinks are traditional, medicinal even, steeped in history and passed down for generations, which for a couple of entries is the only way their existence can be explained.

Others are an unashamed attempt to attract attention, using controversial ingredients to stand out in a crowded market. However some are genuinely innovative creations, using unusual ingredients to push the boundaries of what is acceptable.

The following drinks might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but certainly fill a unique, albeit niche gap in the market.

Click through for our pick of some of the oddest body-based beverages on the market… 

Beard Beer

A brewer in Oregon created a beer that uses the yeast found in his beard.

Back in 2012 John Maier, head brewer of Rogue Ales Brewery Company in Newport, Oregon, and the company president, Brett Joyce, were looking for a new source of yeast for their brews when a lab technician swabbed Maier’s beard as a joke. Having found it to be a viable yeast source (it was claimed that Maier hadn’t shaved his beard since 1978 at the time) they set about cultivating more of the yeast for wider use.

The result, Beard Beer – a 4.8% American wild ale made using Munich, C15 and pilsner malts, Sterling hops, “free-range” coastal water and the most important ingredient of all, yeast from Maier’s beard.

Both men regard it as a beer for those who like to be “grossed out”.

“You’re really not drinking a beard,” Joyce said. “You’re drinking a great beer that happens to have yeast that comes from a beard.”

Tezhi Sanbian Jiu (Three penis liquor)

Tezhi Sanbian Jiu roughly translates to “Three-Penis Liquor”, and is made from exactly just that.

Seal penis, deer penis and Cantonese dog penis are brewed to produce this unique Chinese rice wine, which is also used as a traditional medicine believed to impart male potency and virility.

Bottles of Tezhi Sanbian Jiu can apparently be found in supermarkets across Shanghai.

Stag semen “milked” stout

The Green Man in Wellington, New Zealand, is offering its patrons a stag semen “milked” stout. Created by local brewer Choice Bros, the brew includes a measure of “export-quality” deer semen, which, while likely to turn stomachs, pub owner Steve Drummond believes will prove popular. Providing the beers extra shot is a young stag called Lagoon.

To achieve an “extra smooth and creamy” texture, the beer will be served on hand pump. In addition to its creaminess, the stout allegedly boasts chocolate notes.

The punchy pint isn’t the first exotic offering served at The Green Man. In 2011 it started selling apple-infused horse semen shots.

Meanwhile author Paul Photenhauer has written Semenology, which bills itself as the “ultimate handbook for mixologists looking for ingredients that go beyond exotic fruit juices and rare spirits.” The book promises to “push the limits of classic bartending.”

“Semen is not only nutritious, it also has a palatable texture and wonderful cooking properties. Like fine wine and cheeses, the taste of semen is complex and dynamic,” he says.

Whisky X body-blended whisky

Earlier this year a bizarre range of whiskies was launched which claimed to have been “body blended” by porn stars.

Believing that “something was missing” in the world of whisky, its founders launched Whisky By X in 2014, billed as a “new drinking experience” combining diamonds, porn stars and gold.

Each of brand’s two 12-year-old blends have apparently been “body-blended” by either Tori Black or Joy Van Velsen, both porn stars. Its founders claim the method allows any drinker to “experience the perfect combination of premium quality whisky and the most coveted women”, adding: “Our whisky is body blended by the most beautiful women”.

A bottle of this unique yet perplexing product will set you back £85 ($130).

Korean Ttongsul (faeces wine)

Ttongsul, or faeces wine, originates from Korea and is made by submerging a bamboo stick containing human faeces in a chamber-pot with alcohol, and leaving it there for several months to ferment. After this time, the mixture is removed removed from the bamboo stick and filtered to be served. Another, less time-consuming method, is to simply mix alcohol with faeces for several days until it has fermented, before straining and serving the mixture.

The unusual beverage all but died out in the 1960s, but was once considered an effective treatment for cuts, bruises and a host of other ailments, as well as being touted as a cure for epilepsy.

Piss to Pilsner

Taking recycling to a whole other level, the Roskilde Festival in Denmark this year collected some 25,000 litres of urine to be “beercycled” into brews of the future.

The initiative, entitled “from piss to pilsner”, saw urine from 100,000 festival-goers collected and used to fertilise barley fields, the crops from which will be used to produce beer that will be served back to revellers in Roskilde in 2017.

Those wishing to make a “contribution” have to go to special urinals emblazoned with slogans such as: “Don’t waste your piss. Farmers can turn it into beer again.”

Danish festival recycles urine to make beer

Bloody Mary with pig’s blood

While a Bloody Mary alone might be enough to fulfil your halloween-themed drink quota, trendy Soho bar The Talented Mr Fox has gone a step further by adding a dose of real pig’s blood to its version of the classic cocktail.

The ghoulish beverage also contains black pudding, clarified tomato juice, spiced hydrosol and vodka. The man behind the serve is the Talented Mr Fox himself, Matt Whiley, who first 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.

Smoked brain zombie beer

Riding on the success of AMC’s zombie-based TV series The Walking Dead, last year a Philadelphia brewery released an American pale stout infused with smoked goat brains.

The Dock Street Brewing Company said the goat brains, which are cooked over hot coals before being added to the beer mix, give an “intriguing, subtle smoke” flavour to the pale stout. The beer also contains more conventional ingredients including cranberries, which were said to add a “sinister, bloody hue” and “slight tartness”, malted wheat, oats and flaked barley and Fuggle hops.

The Walking Dead is a post-apocalyptic horror-drama which follows a group of survivors living in a world overrun with zombies known as “walkers”.

Valentine’s body-based whisky tasting

Literally bringing together bodies and booze, Bompas and Parr hosted a unique tasting this past Valentine’s Day which saw guests sip aged-whisky off the bodily crevices of their age-appropriate counterparts.

So if you were wanting to sample a 50-year-old malt, you would so so by sipping it off the navel of a 50-year-old man, for example.

Explaining the concept, Bompas and Parr, which specialises in “flavour based experience design, culinary research, architectural installations and contemporary food design”, said: “The spirits will be drunk from the natural contours of the performers’ bodies, each born the same year the liquid was put in a cask. There are gustatory and intellectual benefits to the practice, the heat of the body will raise the temperature of the whisky, helping to showcase the flavours as guests form a uniquely intimate bond with the performers.”

The Moby Dick Sazerac

Created by Ryan Chetiyawardana at the White Lyan in London, the Moby Dick Sazerac is made with ambergris – a sperm whale secretion that can be foraged from the ocean – Peychaud’s bitters and served with a strip of edible, absinthe-infused rice paper.

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

“The ambergris is basically a waterborne fur ball that whales cough up. Dogs go mad for it, it’s got an amazing musky aroma. The cool thing about ambergris is that it naturally accelerates other aromas and helps to lift different aromas from the drink as it warms up,” Chetiyawardana told db.

The unusual ingredient is bought in at £35 per gram and is flown in from New Zealand.