We first learned about old sour on Harbour Island in the Bahamas, where we once bought a Bacardi bottle of the seafood seasoning, labeled by hand as "Patricia's." We've used it for years now, but we're novices with the concoction compared to the old-line "Conchs" in the Florida Keys, the native-born residents, who originally boasted a family link to Bahamians. Conchs made the elementary brew as a way to preserve the tangy juice of key limes when the fruit went out of season. They would just add salt and often chile to the juice, and then store it in a used liquor bottle to keep as a table sauce for years to come. The locals would feature their namesake conch as the main seafood in this salad, but given its scarcity in most markets, we suggest scallops as a substitute. Another Atlantic delicacy rarely eaten until well into the nineteenth century, scallops taste similar to conch in some ways, but lack its gritty toughness, so prized in the Keys.
