Skinos Mastiha liqueur. This is a truly fascinating spirit. It’s so different from anything else I’ve ever tasted in edible/drinkable form. The flavor is hard to describe…but it kinda tastes like a less-minty toothpaste or chewing gum, and smells like an organic-all-natural food-safe cleaning product or a restorative skin ointment. Stay with me here, hang on. It’s honey-sweet, relatively mild overall, and reminiscent of floral, slightly mentholated and pine-y, woody (like Palo Santo) aromatherapy incense sticks. Ya, still with me?

Mastiha is a liqueur made from the resin of the mastic tree, made on the Greek island of Chios. The tree is tapped, the resin is collected, dried until hard, mixed with alcohol and distilled to extract the flavor, and finally sweetened and adjusted to bottling strength (30% abv). Mastic gum has been used for medicinal purposes for over 2000 years and still has a super wide variety of uses, from cooking (& drinking) to breath freshener to paint varnish to medical stitches.

I know my description didn’t seem the most appealing, but trust me, this is definitely something I know will resin-ate with some of you looking for that next awesome unique ingredient to try in cocktails. Does this interest ya or are you a pass?

(Note: this is different from the anise-focused liqueur often noted as mastiKa. I believe mastika – which is similar to ouzo or Arak – also does contain mastic resin as an ingredient, though it’s dominated by anise/licorice)