Irish moss is a red algae that grows in low-tide areas on rocky coasts of the Atlantic Ocean, also known as carrageenan, for the Irish town Carragheen. It is used as a gelling agent in cosmetics, a thickener in ice creams and soymilk, a cattle feed, as an anti-inflammatory medicine, a clarifier in beer brewing. In the Caribbean it is often mixed with sugar, milk, rum and nutmeg to make a quenching drink that is rumored to have aphrodisiac qualities.