Drink in Focus: Oyster Shell at Socio
The bar on Staunton Street uses oyster shells discarded by fish eatery Hooked on Caine Road to concoct an effervescent, refreshing drink
Where other concept menus often lead with esoteric ideas or atmospheres that contextualise their signatures, the front cover of Socio’s new menu hits us with just facts: it introduces their community-driven bent, which focuses on reusing waste ingredients from other restaurants and bars in SoHo.
Upcycling spare/waste ingredients – usually by way of centrifuging, redistilling, using sous-vide or other means of processing – is not a new concept. The question is always whether a waste ingredient still yields enough flavour to produce a delicious drink. This is what we immediately wondered with Socio’s Oyster Shell, which reuses about 4.4kg of oyster shells monthly from Caine Road fish eatery and market Hooked.
“The shells don’t have a lot of flavour,” says co-founder Amir Javaid, “so we actually add vinegar to bump up the savoury and saline notes. We do a distillation to remove any of the shells and make it a cleaner spirit. You could just infuse the shells, but this is more hygienic.”
The rest of the drink leverages those amplified saline and savoury notes. Taking inspiration from the porn star martini, the cocktail batches a mix of the oyster and vinegar – distilled in vodka – with Roku gin before fat-washing it in cocoa butter. The drink is completed with cardamom bitters, passion fruit and lemon juices, then topped with sparkling wine to serve. The result is an effervescent, refreshing reuse of what is usually associated with sea salt and brine.
“Just because we named the drink ‘Oyster Shell’, people expect a strong taste, but the idea is just that we’re using ingredients and we build around them, so it’s never going to be the main flavour,” Javaid explains.
It’s taken time, but it’s safe to say the group project approach to using oyster shells in drinks has been as successful as it is intriguing. You could start your evening with oysters at Hooked, then walk downhill to Socio to enjoy the rest of that dish in a drink. “I used to go for fish and chips [at Hooked] and then I got to speaking to the owner,” says Javaid. “At first he was a little unsure about why I wanted the oyster shells. As we developed the concept, it took some time to win people over.”
