Eau De Mer: The Iconic Caviar-Infused Rum Cocktail

Whenever you're out having drinks, your mind will inevitably wander to thoughts of food. Of course, a burger, fries, and a beer at the local water hole could hit the spot, but there are a few more elegant pairings you could choose to snack on. Esquire tells us sushi would taste great alongside a glass of rye whiskey on the rocks, tequila pairs with tacos, certain wines complement stinky cheeses, and cognac is best served with chilled seafood.

Some drinks go one step further and incorporate food into the cocktail itself. This doesn't only apply to the ingredients that garnish a bloody mary. There's the classic Dirty Martini cocktail, a blend of alcohol and olive brine served with an olive snack suspended within it, invented by an experimental New York City bartender in the early 1900s (via VinePair). At one Hong Kong restaurant, diners were treated to a rum cocktail mixed with a surprising ocean offering.

If you were to find yourself in Hong Kong in 2019 with a hankering for a sippable seafood snack, you would have been able to head to Zest by Konishi, a French-Japanese fusion restaurant and cocktail bar. There, you could order the Eau De Mer, a mixological mashup invented by cocktail whiz Jonny Amir built around a base of caviar-infused rum, per Michelin Guide. The caviar makes the rum's flavor profile more savory and complex. It also includes " ...white port, house-made seaweed syrup, Roots Mastic liqueur and an extra spoon of caviar."

However, though you'll undoubtedly have a lot of luxurious dishes and drinks to choose from if you attend Zest by Konishi today, you may not be able to enjoy the salty sturgeon egg-infused Eau De Mer. It doesn't appear on their menu, though the drink menu does feature a selection of aged rums.

The Art of Business Travel tells us that the Eau De Mer was served inside a seashell, which, in addition to being decorative, likely helps highlight the cocktail's briny undertones. One of the drink's ingredients, Roots Mastic liqueur, lends a flavor of anise, fennel, and mint, according to the flavor profile of mastic mentioned in The New York Times.

Though it may not be everyone's favorite pairing, there are other modern drinks that bring seafood and spirits together. A more modern seafood cocktail is the Bloody Caesar, a variation of the Bloody Mary that mixes clamato, or clam and tomato juice, with vodka. According to Forbes, award-winning mixologist Brian van Flandern enjoys making drinks out of dried caviar and all manner of different spirits. Dried caviar is shelf stable, which makes Flandern's cocktails, though they're still indulgent, a bit more practical than the Eau De Mer.