The website of the US’ National Public Radio (NPR) recently reported on an upcoming trend in high-end bars and restaurants: alcoholic beverages mixed with tobacco for an extra spicy flavour and a ‘nicotine buzz.’
NPR spoke to the owner of Los Angeles based ‘gastropub’ Father’s Office, which has sweetened one of their cocktails with ‘a small amount of tobacco-infused sugar syrup’. The used tobacco comes from pipe tobacco, after the people of Father’s Office experimented with infusing their drink with bits of Marlboro Light cigarettes, chopped up cigars and snuff.
Another culinary entrepreneur from Alexandria, Virginia is referred to in the article, who uses various tobaccos in a ‘tea’ that goes into his bourbon-based Smoker’s Delight. Another bar owner, from Washington, DC according to the article uses cedar smoke and a dash of homemade tobacco bitters in one of his drinks.
However, tobacco drinks are not only to be found at specialized bars. Available in stores are also tobacco and menthol-flavoured vodkas and tobacco liqueur.
The article additionally quotes a health researcher specialized in the effects of tobacco. Stan Glantz of the University of California-San Francisco warns that nicotine is used as insecticide and these drinks are essentially beverages spiked with pesticides. An additional problem signalled by Glantz is the unstandardized amount of nicotine that goes into the craft made beverages. “It’s impossible to know what the dosage is since these guys are making this stuff themselves,” Glantz told NPR blog The Salt.
For more info (including a recent scientific study on liquidized nicotine), please head over to NPRs The Salt>>
Source: NPR.org 01/14/14