Trollied Tuesday: Put a Tiger in your Tank

I've never quite felt that Tiger Beer lived up to its name. It's not bad at all, and goes down pretty well with Thai or Chinese food and hits the spot nicely on a hot day, but it lacks the savage potency and nobility that the name demands.

No such problems for Tiger Wine which, according to this BBC report, is made from tiger carcasses soaked in rice wine. The resulting mixture is sold in certain wildlife parks in China as a health tonic to treat conditions such as arthritis and rheumatism.

There are certain objections to this, of course. Although the staff selling the stuff insist that the only tiger corpses used are those of animals killed in fights (do tigers really fight each other very often?), the suspicion is that the animals used died of natural causes and would, therefore, be less than ideal to use in health products. There is also cause to worry that these exceedingly rare animals are being killed to fund the trade in something which, one fears, tastes rather like an oriental Buckfast.

Clearly this is a sorry end for such magnificent creatures. One might respect someone who enjoyed the staggeringly decadent thrill of using tiger bile to attain a state of intense, sulphurous intoxication, but to use the animals for something as base as healthy living – or pandering to superstitious nonsense – is beneath contempt.

In general though, tiger wine is best left as a philosophical ideal. A state of intoxication that is both beautiful, fierce and rare. An iron-hearted, man-slaying drink that will not live long, if you like. I'd use something better than rice wine as the basis of it, too.

Would anyone care to suggest what should go in to such a drink, or shall I allow my own imagination to form it?