Snake Wine (or other 'unusual' alcohol infusions)

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone had tried Snake wine, or any other animal infusions. I bought a bottle on eBay a couple of years ago, I recently found it and I am intrigued to try it... but with it being from eBay, I'm not entirely sure that I should? lol (If there were a way that I could tell that it was OK then I would without a doubt try it).

But I definitely do wish to try some of these strange concoctions I have seen online here.

But what exactly do they taste like? Does anyone have any pictures of items like this that they own?

According to Anthony Bourdain, these animal infusions are the most revolting things on Earth. Enjoy!

Best - MM

mozart said:

According to Anthony Bourdain, these animal infusions are the most revolting things on Earth. Enjoy!

Best - MM

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Pretty much enough for me.

I have infused vodka with peppercorns, that is about where I draw the line.

I saw lots of these for sale years ago when I lived in Beijing.

The idea, in Chinese medicine, is that the snake ingredient would work as male enhancement. Roughly speaking, things that are shaped like penises tend to have this quality, I think.

Without any kind of comment on Chinese medicine in general, this particular thing to me seems silly and certainly isn't something that would be done to better the quality or flavor of your alcohol.

More importantly for me is that I hate baijiu (白&#37202 with a passion and most of these liquors were just that, IIRC.

One Chinese drink I do love is/was the incredibly cheap osmanthus wine (guihua jiu 桂花&#37202 which was sickeningly sweet, probably filled with crap but delicious to me nonetheless.

I never even for a minute imagined that they would taste good. I know it sounds strange that someone would want to consume something based on this premice... but I guess it's just curosity?

I'm more thinking of drinking it amongst friends. Sort of a talking point/male bravevardo sort of deal?

Here is a recipe for **** Ale from Charlie Papazian's book:

Take ten gallons of ale, and a large ****, the older the better, parboil the ****, flea him, and stamp him in a stone mortar till his bones are broken, (you must craw and gut him when you flea him) put the **** into two quarts of sack, and put to it three pounds of raisins of the sun stoned, some blades of mace, and a few cloves; put all these into a canvas bag, and a little before you find the ale has done working, put the ale and bag together into a vessel; in a week or nine days' time bottle it up, fill the bottles but just above the necks, and leave the same time to ripen as other ale.

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I think I'll try a premade mixture before I start homebrewing

Although, thinking about it, perhaps I could make a 'topical' badger infused vodka, hehe.

Despite what the sake kooks say, the Asians can't make a decent wine* out of rice. I'm going to try a wine made out of snake? Puh-leeze!








*Okay, so not all of it is crap, but I'm not selling my Ch. Latour just yet.

Habu Sake and the local Awamori (with the addition of a Habu) are very popular here in Okinawa, and I have to say the bottles look very impressive on the shelf.

From what I've heard, though, the cheap stuff is terrible, and the expensive stuff is way out of my price range. So it's unlikely I'm ever going to get a chance to try the stuff.

Here's a link on Awamori, if you're interested: http://www.jahitchcock.com/okiawamori.html

Hi,

I bought a bottle of snake wine and a bottle of scorpion wine on the snake wine website and we drank it with my friends, quite strong, but everybody still alive !
http://www.asiansnakewine.com/

;-)

ouch said:

Despite what the sake kooks say, the Asians can't make a decent wine* out of rice.

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Are you kidding me? How little you know my friend... That's a bit like saying those hapless Germans can't do much with barley and hops. I'm guessing you've tried a fairly limited array of sake or simply don't care for the taste in general, a thing far removed from 'Asians' being able (or not) to make decent sake wouldn't you say? I do, however, see that you are a fan of the vintage Floyd which does redeem you somewhat (at least in my mind).

Back on topic though, a local Okinawan izakaya near my place often pawns their 'habu' (rattlesnake) awamori on me whenever I drop by and I've yet to be killed by the stuff, though it does taste about how you'd expect a rotting snake to taste.

thunderball said:

Are you kidding me? How little you know my friend...........far removed from 'Asians' being able (or not) to make decent sake wouldn't you say? I do, however, see that you are a fan of the vintage Floyd which does redeem you somewhat (at least in my mind).

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I'm guessing you never had a bottle of '47 Cheval Blanc.

ouch said:

I'm guessing you never had a bottle of '47 Cheval Blanc.

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Ah...well you do have a point there (though I AM sipping a Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Merlot at the moment..I know, I know, no comparison!)

mozart said:

According to Anthony Bourdain, these animal infusions are the most revolting things on Earth. Enjoy!

Best - MM

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Considering some of the things he's eaten, that is saying something.

I have been trying to score a bottle for a while. I just want it as a conversation piece and maybe as a drunken dare on a friend.

When I became a Chief Petty Officer I had to go through an initiation. The uninitiated know a bit about the ritual which is shrouded in ominous mystery and is supposed to be secret. Without giving anything away, it is traditional that during this initiation, you are subjected to the foulest abuse which you are expected to take with a stiff upper lip and a "thank you may I have another" attitude. A couple of the more unpleasant things I recall are eating baloot and drinking a very odd liquor.

Someone brought a bottle of liquor that I believe had Chinese writing on it and cartoon likenesses of rats or mice in tennis shoes running on two feet. In the bottom of the bottle rested a layer of what appeared to be mouse or rat fetuses about 3/4 inch long. Maybe 20 of them. The liquor was sweet, very high alcohol content and had the foulest after taste. I had never seen it before or since. Needless to say, puking is common.

When on leave in Asian countries we were prohibited from buying their alcohol’s because some were reputed to have narcotics in them and no one amongst us could read what the bottles said. I am quite certain that this stuff was obtained illegally by one of the chiefs and saved just for initiation.

Mmmm, rotting snake sounds delightful... at least compared to rat fetuses!

The bottle I own looks similar to that on AsianSnakeWine.com - but with me buying it from an eBay seller (probably 4-5 years ago), I don't know whether to try it? If there were a way I could tell it was not contaminated I would definitely test it out this weekend.

I'm curious about trying Balut.... I feel that this is a bad thing.

I've had tequila with scorpion in it, that's about as close as I've come to snake wine.

Confuzius said:

I'm curious about trying Balut.... I feel that this is a bad thing...

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Sorry about the hijack, but he is curious

For me it was a very bad thing. I would never eat one voluntarily. In the PI, I was told that they are duck eggs, but I have also heard there is a version that is chicken. The ones I ate and have seen were not chicken. I only go by what I was told and it seemed true when attempting to eat one. Fertilized to the point that there is a formed duck complete with beak, feathers, eyes etc... Kind of gristly. Buried and fermented for some length of time till they are flirting with rotten but tangy. Bad smelling, bad wretch inducing texture and the taste though bad, the least offensive of the three.

I have jars in my collections lab that look like the snake whisky and whatnot. These things can carry disease, they also have nasty stuff on their insides. I'm assuming the alcohol would kill the bacteria and whatnot, but still....no. I'd put that on the same page of drinking a bottle of rubbing alcohol infused with a human fetus.

The problem with something with 37% alcohol is that thyre is alot of water in there to let the snake rot. When preserving a specimen you use 100% ethanol (at the moment atleast). It'll be nicer on your shelf than in your belly.