If we’ve learned anything from living in a basement making weird food videos, it’s that a game changing recipe can come from anywhere. Just because you’re the most famous chef on earth, with a team of minions and an array of gadgets that would turn Batman green, doesn’t mean that you’ve got what it takes to break the internet. Case in point, Aldi.
Last week, Germany’s infamous budget supermarket made headlines everywhere when it unveiled its all new slate of novelty gins. The collection included everything from rhubarb and bramble to Tutti Frutti-flavoured concoctions, but there was one bottle that had everyone talking. Hidden between normal sounding spirits was The Infuisionist’s Small Batch Mystical Unicorn Gin Liqueur. When word got out, the world lost their minds. Of course, we had to try some.
The first thing that you notice about a bottle of unicorn gin is the colour. It has the same shimmery sheen as an untouched bottle of conditioner, hypnotically swirling like a lukewarm lava lamp. If you leave it undisturbed, strange silvery granules pool at the bottom of the bottle, looking like fallen ash from a wizard’s cigarette.
Crack open the lid, and the bright pink contents smell like one of those soaps that you ending up inexplicably wanting to eat. It’s as though someone blended scent of giant gummy strawberries with a dodgy nightclub dancefloor - sweet, with just a hint of sinful. And then we got to the tasting.
It’s fair to say that opinion was split. Some, apparently unable to embrace their inner unicorn, thought it was too sweet and synthetic, and questioned why anyone would want a drink that looks like a science experiment conducted exclusively with shampoo. Other, more magically inclined individuals, were positively glowing.
One fan said that it tasted like “strawberry milkshake mixed with gin and glitter.” Another agreed that it tasted like someone had managed to distil the entire contents of a Pic ‘n’ Mix aisle. The best way to describe it is probably like a cough medicine for which you have particularly fond childhood memories - you’d feel ridiculous asking for a shot of it in a bar, but good god it’s yummy. Even our resident mixologist conceded that it would make a cracking cosmopolitan.
There are plenty of mysterious things about Aldi’s Mystical Unicorn gin. Plenty of people will wonder why and how such a drink came to be. But, having tasted it, we can only say that Aldi aren’t lying with what they say on the bottle. This really is the only drink that comes close to “transport(ing) you to the mystical land of the unicorns.” Whatever that means.
This article originally appeared on twistedfood.co.uk
