Comments (0)L’chaim! Drink ‘Jews Ear Juice’
September 3, 2010Neil Rubin
Editor
Warning: This is uber-weird news.
How else can one react upon hearing that for sale all over China is an allegedly delicious new drink called Jews Ear Juice?
It seems to hail from the Changbai Mountain region and be made with indigenous wood ear fungus, according to the folks at New Atlas Beverage Company, who offer “reviews of the world’s most unusual, strange and weird beverages.” (Sign me up!)
In a not-so-endorsing review, an anonymous writer reports, “It’s smell is weird, like a mix between the apple vinegar drink and turkey gravy. It’s a little thick and slimy, but the flavor is actually mild. The flavor isn’t anything at all like the cooked wood ear that I’m used to eating.”
The ingredients: pure water, black wood ear (“Jew’s ear”), haw (Chinese hawthorn), Chinese date, sugar, honey, sodium of citric acid and stabilizer. Not to worry. If you don’t like your drinks cold, the writer recommends heating it up, which makes it more “densely” fragrant. Warning: The process made it smell like SpaghettiO’s.
And there is an outstanding bonus: It comes with this awesome party conversation starter — a “Jew’s Ear Juice Bottle Opener.”
L’chaim! Sort of.