Australian bar garnishes margaritas with pig eyeballs

Your typical run-of-the-mill margarita is probably garnished with a salt rim and a lime wedge, but at one restaurant in Tasmania, an island off of Australia‘s south coast, these traditional accompaniments are swapped out for something more peculiar. Faro Tapas - a one-month-old restaurant inside the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) - makes its “black margarita” with the eyeball of a feral boar.

The super-creepy cocktail was created by Mona mixologist Adam Turner to promote Eat the Problem, a recipe and art book that’s about using invasive species in food and art.

“The book includes recipes by renowned international chefs and artwork by artists in the Mona collection and beyond,” book curator Kirsha Kaechele told The Daily Meal. “It is a mad, surreal missive-full of creative writing, scientific research and industrial design. You don’t have to literally eat the problem, but you can - the cat chapter is particularly compelling.”

We’re as intrigued and confused by that last part as you probably are. But as far as taste goes, Gourmet Traveller food critic Pat Nourse said the beverage was “as much of a let-down to the would-be Instagrammer as it is to the drinker.” The pitch blackness of the margarita is brought about with charcoal powder and the glass is rimmed with black salt. This allegedly dampened the flavors of the tequila, mezcal, and lime, and made it an absolute nuisance to photograph. No word on how the eyeball affected the flavor.

So if you need to spruce up your social media profiles, a jet-black margarita adorned with a pig eyeball might not be your best bet. Perhaps you could grab your camera and head to one of the 15 most Instagrammable destinations you can visit on a budget instead.

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