40 Weird Drinks That May Not Quench Your Thirst

This one is 100% Aussie and is actually not as strange as it sounds. The beverage company making the gin uses hand-harvested green worker ants, historically used for medicinal purposes by Indigenous Australians, before and after distillation. Apparently, the ants give the gin flavors of lime and coriander. Also, there are actual ants at the bottom of the bottle, and they are edible!

This Japanese peach flavor jelly drink is made of pig placenta. It's marketed to have regenerative effects since some believe consuming the placenta is very beneficial for the body. The alleged benefits include improving the mother’s energy and capacity to produce breast milk and even countering postpartum depression. Could that really be the case? Unfortunately, no scientific evidence supports that eating (or, in this case, drinking) the placenta provides human health benefits.

This one originates from Korea, where soju, a distilled rice wine, is the national drink. There are many flavors of soju, but in seafood places known as "tuna houses," you may get a shot of tuna tears—a jelly-like concoction of soju and fluid from a tuna's eye. What does it taste like, you may ask? A little salty, just like tears.

This mildly alcoholic beverage made out of horse milk, known as kumis, is customary in central Asian nations like Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Horse milk, which inherently has more natural sugars than cow's milk, ferments in a process similar to winemaking. However, modern kumis is often produced from sweetened cows' milk because cows are, well, easier to milk than horses.

It's not made from snakes, no. Not this variation, at least. In the more common variant of this bizarre drink, the snake is soaked in rice wine to infuse it with the snake's “essence.” Although the snakes are poisonous, allegedly, the alcohol in the wine makes the venom harmless. Old folklore claims that the drink can boost virility and even acts as an aphrodisiac (although it's much more likely to make you pass out). Another much more frightening variation involves reptile blood and bile mixed with rice wine.

One part beer and one part milk sounds like a recipe for disaster. Just think about the beer that has been wasted on this concoction. This must be one of the weirdest (and most painful) food pairings we've ever witnessed.

Gau jal, also known as "cow water," is marketed as a "healthier" alternative to Coke and Pepsi. It's a soft drink with cow urine as its base ingredient. The paramilitary group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which created the beverage, claims that gau jal has numerous health benefits and is effective against a number of illnesses. But is it really?

Panda dung tea was reportedly the most expensive tea in the world when it first went on sale in April 2012, with 50 grams (~16 cups) going for $3,500. That's roughly $200 per cup! To grow the tea, An Yanshi, a Chinese businessman specializing in panda tea, used pandas' excrement sourced from nearby breeding facilities. He asserted that the tea grown from pandas' dung is healthy, given that pandas only eat wild bamboo and only absorb roughly 30% of its nutrients.

There are many legends surrounding the origins of this disturbing beverage. Some believe it dates back to the 1920s when a feisty rum-runner named Louie ran into an awful blizzard and froze his toe off. Quite literally. His brother amputated it to prevent gangrene and put the toe in a jar of alcohol. Others say it originated in 1972 after a guy in Dawson City, Yukon, accidentally severed his toe with a lawnmower and, after the incident, donated it (the toe, not the lawnmower) to a neighboring pub, where it was pickled in booze. Because that's precisely what you do in scenarios like this. Nevertheless, whatever the true origin may be, it's a shot of whiskey with a nasty garnish: a floating mummified human toe.

Although some are special and limited releases, you can't argue that flavors like turkey and gravy, perspiration, ham, bacon, or Brussels sprout with prosciutto would only appeal to someone with a peculiar taste palate!

One beverage you should watch out for when traveling to the Dominican Republic is mamajuana. Although it’s a national beverage, each family has their own recipe for mamajuana, and there is no single accepted version. Yet bark is one component every recipe calls for. With whatever additional ingredients the maker adds, red wine, honey, and rum are poured over the bark. According to the people, mamajuana serves various functions, including as an aphrodisiac and a remedy for stomach problems, colds, and the flu.

Mezcal, a popular beverage in Mexico, does not fit our definition of weird on its own. One sort, though, sticks out among the others. Mezcal de pechuga, often known as “meat breast mezcal,” isn’t made in the same manner as regular mezcal. A raw chicken breast (or hen, rabbit, or turkey) is hung over the still during the mezcal de pechuga process and slowly cooked in the fumes. Prepared this way, it supposedly gives the beverage a punchier flavor.

Remember FADS fun sticks? Or other candy cigarettes kids used to simulate smoking? Probably not, because it has been a while. Well, it's a similar "pretend" product. While this Japanese beverage doesn't contain alcohol and tastes just like Coke, it has a beer-like appearance and is packaged in brown bottles. The drink was designed to create a frothy head to resemble exactly what Dad is drinking.

We hope you never end up in circumstances where you would be tempted to make it. Unofficially "invented" in American prisons, pruno is created by preserving leftover fruits from meals and throwing them into a plastic garbage bag. Add some yeast from crumbled bread, sweeten it with sugar, soda (or even tomato sauce), hide it from the prison guards, and let it sit. After filtering through a shirt or pair of socks, it's best served at room—no, sorry—cell temperature.

Traditional Chinese medicine believes deer penis has health benefits, especially when consumed soaked in alcohol, essentially turning the pairing into deer penis wine. And like most Chinese wines, this one is also reportedly brutally potent and not something you'd want to sip on for your own pleasure.

Feeling like a hot mess, but even the 'hot' part is lacking? Andes mountain villagers think putting frogs in a blender would solve the problem. Some people in Peru and Bolivia believe that a juice mixture made primarily of frogs helps treat asthma, bronchitis, and sluggishness. Well, bad news for us and good news for frogs, there is no scientific proof that frog juice has any health benefits.

What started as an April Fool's joke is now a Colorado specialty. After the Denver brewery released a spoof video unveiling a new beer made with cooked bull testicles (known as Rocky Mountain oysters in the West) and it went viral, the company decided to turn it into reality. The result is, hands-down, the ballsiest canned beer in the world.

This is old news, but in 2008, a soft drink miming the experience of smoking a cigarette was promised to smokers craving a fag while at bars and restaurants. It promised to get rid of the urge to smoke within one to four hours. Because it relied on a South African plant extract rather than nicotine, it was reportedly claimed that users could "drink the smoking feeling."

Product of Vietnam, this drink is made from white fungus, an actual bird’s nest, and other ingredients with names we can't pronounce. Apparently, it tastes like cake batter.

When in Thailand, try a traditional Thai whiskey, also known as Yaa Dong (which translates to “pickled medicine”), made from rice grain infused with ginseng root, medicinal herbs, and actual reindeer antlers. The horns are said to provide many health advantages, including greater vigor and virility *insert a “horny” pun somewhere*. Besides, some people in Southeast Asia even think consuming this whiskey would elevate your social standing!