If you thought that oysters could only be combined with Muscadet – a champagne many already consider quite passée – we know one daring chef that could change your mind.

Nicholas Wilber, from New York’s renownThe Leadbelly believes that if for wine we need to consider its terroir, for oysters we could talk about their merroir, as there are so many geo-climatic factors that can positively affect their quality.

So here comes the daring combination suggested by the chef: oysters and whiskey. Wilber’s intuition hit him while fishing the mollusks in a bay near Cape Cod: according to the chef they were so rich in taste that they could even be matched with some good old scotch.

From this experiment he then moved on to the creation of custom-made cocktails that included a blend of oysters and whiskey: at The Ledbelly’s there’s a list of at least 20 different cocktails prepared in this way, such as a revisited Bloody Mary with Talisker instead of vodka and a single Kumamoto oyster. Another must from the Big Apple worth trying at least once.