Invasive, cannibalistic green crabs are harming the marine ecosystem of New England and to stop it, a distillery in New Hampshire found that they can use the animals to make whiskey. Their $65 bottle of bourbon is infused with the taste of green crabs created using the stock of crabs steeped with spices.
Green crabs arrived in the US from Europe in the 1800s aboard merchant boats and have spread across the eastern US since then, with a large population in New England.
Making the Green Crab Whiskey
Each bottle of the Crab Trapper from Tamworth Distilling is made with about one pound of green crabs. Stevven Grasse, the owner of the distiller, told Food & Wine's Mike Pomranz that the result of their whiskey is a "briny and better Fireball."
Tamworth Distilling product developer Will Robinson is the one who thought of the idea for the project. According to him, they first cleaned the green crabs and prepared them just like any ordinary crab that people eat. Then they make a crab stock that they distill using a vacuum still or glass machine that allows for precise temperature control.
Robinson said it looks like a piece of laboratory equipment that preserves the aroma that would be destroyed when the stock is boiled. Then they mixed it with spices, including mustard seed, coriander, and cinnamon, before adding it to the bourbon base. He described it as a "thinking, sipping" drink because it was meant for the olfactory senses to perceive the drink's flavor.
The crab aroma can be smelled, as well as the coriander and bay that gives a smooth texture. More so, it has some hints of maple and vanilla oak notes with heavier notes of clove, cinnamon, and allspice that leave a pleasant spice on the palate.
"People are going to hear crab whiskey, and I'd venture to say three-quarters of them are going to go, 'No, absolutely not,'" Robinson told NPR's Kai McNamee. "But if you can get them to taste it, they totally change their tune for the most part."
Fighting the Invasive Green Crabs
According to MailOnline, green crabs feast on native marine life and destroy seagrass. Female green crabs can lay about 175,00 eggs over their lifetime, which poses a problem to their habitats and the ecosystem where they live.
Ocean warming has even contributed to their increased population in the past years, helping them become one of the most successful invasive species in North America, specifically the marine world.
Marine biologist Gabriella Bradt told NPR that each green crab can eat 40 mussels a day and multiply by a bazillion, threatening the population of clams. Scientists in Canada are also working on finding new ways to combat their growing population and use these crabs to make plastics.
Audrey Moores, a chemist at McGill University, developed this project with Kejimkujik National Park Seaside in Nova Scotia, which struggled for years since the 1980s due to the invasive green crabs. Their team harvest green crabs and process their shells to get the extract called chitin used to create an eco-friendly plastic that breaks down in landfills and oceans without any toxic effects.
Moores told CBC that their project could be hitting two birds - reducing the population of green crabs and helping solve ocean plastic pollution. Their process of making these eco-friendly plastics uses less water and fewer chemicals to ensure that it produces little chemical waste.
RELATED ARTICLE: European Green Crab Showed Extensive Dispersal Despite High Gene Flow, Low Genetic Diversity
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