A little crustacean-flavored bourbon, anyone? It may sound like a crazed distiller’s idea of a joke — remember the SNL skit about wacky hard seltzers? — but it’s an actual thing. Specifically, it’s Crab Trapper, a green crab-flavored whiskey from New Hampshire’s adventuresome Tamworth Distilling. And guess what? It actually delivers on its crabby promise in tasty fashion.
I had the whiskey last week when I was on vacation in the Granite State and visited the distillery in its namesake town — a picture-perfect community sandwiched between mountain and lakeside locales. I had known about Tamworth from previously sampling its venison-flavored whiskey, aptly called Deerslayer, but when an employee showed me the Crab Trapper, I had to do a double take. Or to quote my reaction: “You’ve got to be (bleeping) kidding.” But I soon took my sample glass down to the distillery’s riverbank area and discovered the odd pleasures of crustacean-flavored bourbon. You definitely get a mouthful of crab here — Tamworth says its recipe calls for creating a shellfish stock and then blending that with its bourbon. The flavor is, however, smartly balanced by the sweetness of the whiskey. There’s also a lingering note of savory spice, reminiscent of the classic Old Bay seasoning. In all, it’s like having a messy ol’ dinner of Maryland-style crabs, but in not-so-messy liquid form. Except in Maryland, you’ll find blue crabs, whereas the Tamworth whiskey is made with green crabs, an invasive species that has become a problem along th …