Motorbike fan creates Harley-Davidson engine-infused gin
Antique motorbike collector Uwe Ehinger has launched the "world's first" gin containing engine parts from original Harley-Davidson bikes, called The Archaeologist.
The liquid, described as a premium dry gin, is bottled with the original parts of motorbikes Ehinger has discovered from across the world – including 1939 Flathead camshafts from the Mexican desert, 1947 Knucklehead screw-nuts from Chile and 1962 Panhead rocker arms from South Korea. The motorbike parts are cleansed and sealed with a tin alloy to ensure the resulting liquid is safe for human consumption. They are then soldered onto a steel structure and encased in a "handcrafted" bottle. The look and feel of the bottle is intended to recreates the original packaging of the antique engine parts. Selected cardboards and colours are printed on a Heidelberg Tiegel printing press from 1931, while waxed wrapping paper describes the story of the corresponding bottle's motorbike. Hand-stamped tamper-proof seals and clenched hang-tags bearing the unique serial number of the engine part in its respective bottle complete the design. Ehinger – whose nickname is The Archaeologist – has been collecting antique motorbikes for decades, to be used either for dealing or as core pieces for designing his own models. "Everything I do pays tribute to the things that used to be," Ehinger said of his work. The first edition of The Archaeologist is available from Ehinger's garage in Hamburg, Germany. Advance orders for the next series can be placed online at www.the-archaeologist.com.
