Antini: A cocktail made with black currant-infused vermouth, vodka infused with black currant stems and ants, and formic acid from ants.
An Antini may sound more like a science experiment than a cocktail, but after a recent visit to the Alchemist in Copenhagen, Denmark, you could say that I’m hooked. Copenhagen is renowned worldwide for its excellent dining scene, locally-sourced ingredients and modern Scandinavian aesthetic. The Alchemist and head chef, founder and co-owner Rasmus Munk is especially known for not just playing with the boundaries of fine dining but for breaking them completely. From video projections of jellyfish floating alongside plastic bags or a lemongrass chicken meatball served in a cage with the claw attached, it’s clear that nothing at the two-Michelin-starred restaurant is off limits.
Dinner at Alchemist consists of 50 courses, or “impressions,” and takes four to six hours. Referred to as a holistic dining experience, it begins with a view of the open concept recipe and development kitchen. Guests sip glasses of Taittinger or Krug while watching a bevy of uniformed chefs carefully coax various food into shape using tools like a centrifuge, test tubes, flasks and other equipment more often associated with science experiments. What emerges is a series of small bites, from the freeze-dried butterfly resting on a kale crisp to a jamon mochi, flash frozen and then fried to melt in your mouth.
Alchemist is known for ethically provocative touches, like steak tartare served on a silicone tongue, noting that it’s meant to be French kissed. In general, the more icky or jarring a dish is, the better it tastes. Yet the tour of the R&D kitchen held my most memorable impression. In-between the udder tartelette and the deep-fried bumblebee, I sipped an Antini made with a mixture of red wood and leaf cutter ants. Basically, red wood ants are infused in vodka and then strained away. I was doubtful of the slightly green-tinted liquid with a leaf-cutter ant stuck to the rim, but figured I’d probably accidentally drunk a few ants in my life. These ants are here for a reason, however: They secrete formic acid into the vodka, which has a sharp, citrusy taste. And it was delicious — bright, a bit sharp and truly one of the best Martinis I’ve had this year.
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London’s The Connaught Bar has perfected the classic cocktail“In this cocktail, we only use leaf cutter ants for decoration, but they do have an aroma reminiscent of lemongrass,” Munk says. Will this trend catch on? Probably not, says the chef. “Ants are a novel food in the EU, so they can’t use them in the liquor industry,” he adds.
Ants in large quantities are also rather expensive, which makes sense when you take into account a meal at Alchemist starts at $800 (not including beverages). While a previous dish called an Antwich was on the menu, the only other ant-related item currently is the “Amber” impression, which is a petit-four with an ant incorporated into the treat, “Jurassic style.”
“We have had several projects with ants in the R&D kitchen, and we also wrote a scientific article about ants used to coagulate milk,” Munk says. “It’s a part of a larger theme of research on insects.”
Lucky for us, it’s research that starts with a surprisingly wonderful and non-traditional drink.
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