Without a liquor license, Maligne is forced to get creative with their drinks program.

The first thing you might notice at Maligne, which opened 12 weeks ago in Seaside, is that maitre’d Alex Mouzouris is delighted to see you. He’s got a bubbly personality perfectly suited to talking diners into trying unusual drink creations.

Mouzouris is also the drinks director, at a restaurant that has an extensive beer and wine list but no liquor license. That forces creativity, which is no problem for Mouzouris – he is literally turning restaurant trash into cocktails.

“A professor of environmental studies once told me environmental sustainability is not so much a destination as a journey,” he says.

So he’s using prickly pineapple rinds and tops, discarded by the kitchen staff as they make dessert, and mashing them with water and sugar. He lets it ferment for a couple of days, producing a low-alcohol drink called Tepache ($10) – it smells almost bready, but the tropical flavor of fruit follows.

And this week, he’s planning to launch a new wine-based cocktail, called the Seaside 75 (named after a French 75). He uses a “gin” – based on wine, infused with juniper – mixed with a thick, frothy oleo-saccharum, made from tossing discarded citrus peels (sustainability again) with sugar. A Chardonnay-based bubbly is poured on top. But the salted rim of the Seaside 75 ($18) takes the cake – it’s not just salt, but a powder made of clams and oysters on the brink, plus prawn shells and lemon peels, dehydrated then crushed into a coarse powder that smells and tastes subtly oceanic.

MALIGNE, 600 Broadway Ave., Seaside. Open 4:15-9:15pm Wed-Sun. 601-1302.