This bar is putting actual ants in its cocktails, and people totally love it
As devoted long-term cocktail enthusiasts, there’s very little we won’t at least try. From strange bitters to impossibly spicy peppers to actual Goblets of Fire, we’re totally down for creative innovation in the booze market.
… But from where we’re standing, this Singapore bar putting actual ants in its cocktails may have finally taken things one itty bitty step too far.
A Singapore-based Mashable reporter recently made the trek to Native, a cocktail spot whose Facebook promises “a focus on using regional products and ingredients.” However, Native’s regional offerings go beyond Southeast Asian medicinal root, tongkat ali, and coconut flower sap aged in Sri Lankan wood — the “Antz” cocktail also features “locally-forged weaver ants” as garnishes atop “a tropical recipe of Chalong Bay Rum, coconut yoghurt, salt-baked tapioca and soursop.”
They rest on a “liquid nitrogen-frozen leaf with basil cubes,” and you’re supposed to pop ’em all in your mouth and chew on their tiny ant bodies before you drink the rest of the beverage, which actually sounds really nice.
And despite our … reservations … those who have bravely tried the Antz cocktail seem to really like it.
Even though it looks, y’know, kind of gross.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BPNj7NyA0vs
To be fair, it looks pretty cool with the nitrogen.
“Sometimes, little bits of the ant legs and parts get stuck in people’s teeth,” Vijay Mudaliar, founder and head bartender at Native, told Mashable, adding that the Thai ants used have Vitamin C that gives them a “sour taste,” and that he tried “maybe seven different types of ants before I found the sour weaver one.”
Hey man — if it’s good enough for Timon and Pumbaa, we guess it’s good enough for us, too. Though we almost definitely won’t be having more than one.
