Combining chickpeas and booze might bring to mind some unpleasant visions of hummus cocktails, but the two ingredients are surprisingly harmonious. Chickpea water — or aquafaba, if you want to be fancy — is currently surging in popularity as a vegan substitute for egg white in cocktails. In this video from Wired, deputy editor Adam Rogers tries out this odd-sounding drink ingredient by whipping up a Pisco Sour with the legume byproduct.
Rogers shakes up a tasty-looking beverage with pisco, lemon juice, simple syrup, and chickpea water — aka the stuff you'd normally pour down the drain when making hummus — and confirms that the drink does not in fact taste like beans. According to bartenders, aquafaba has several other advantages too: It's cheaper than eggs, it doesn't have the "wet dog" smell that egg whites can sometimes lend to a drink, and it can be flavored ahead of time to speed up the cocktail-making process.