Fun & Boozy Science Experiments You Can Do At Home

Chemical Volcano

Think back to your science class days, when you had to build a volcano and make it erupt with rubbing alcohol, vinegar, and baking powder. Well, you can do that same exact experiment as an adult. But instead of using rubbing alcohol, you can use vodka. Because their properties are so similar, you can replace the rubbing alcohol with vodka. All you need is a small bottle and some sand (Science Fun).

Burning Water Balloon

This one is pretty simple. All you have to do is fill a water balloon with alcohol and light it on fire. Always take extra safety precautions before doing any science experiment that involves fire, and make sure a fire extinguisher is within reach.Ignite the water balloon with a flame and watch it burn! You’ll have an explosion, followed by a pulsating blue light as the balloon burns away (YouTube).

Make A Cloud In A Bottle

This science experiment is possible thanks to all those bottles of wine you’ve opened. If you’ve wondered what to do with all those wine corks and don’t feel like putting them into a glass vase anymore, you can use them to help you make a cloud! Those vaporous bundles of mist and ice crystal give us shade and some of the most beautiful sunsets in the world. As a kid, you might have spent hours lying on the grass looking up at the clouds, admiring their animalistic shapes and sizes. Did you know you can bring these clouds into your own home using a plastic bottle, rubbing alcohol, a bike pump, and a wine cork? Thank your love for wine for this one! Take the plastic water bottle and pour rubbing alcohol inside. Drill a hole in the wine cork and attach it to the bike pump’s valve. Attach it to the top of the bottle and give it a few pumps. The drastic temperature change, much like the one we experience in real time, happens in the bottle (YouTube).

The Exploding Cork Experiment

If you have some empty film canisters lying around, now’s your time to use them. Out with the old, in with the new! Seal the film canisters with alcohol-soaked cotton balls, close them shut with a cork, and watch them pop thanks to the buildup of evaporating alcohol. Just make sure you or anyone else is within eye shot of the exploding cork, since getting smacked in the head with the lid is not on anyone’s agenda (Instructables).

Whiskey And Water

You’re either a whiskey drinker or not. You might even be an avid “whiskey on the rocks” drinker, or can only handle one shot at a time. Or, you might need to drown your whiskey in coca-cola to get rid of the taste. However you drink your whiskey, you can use it in a science experiment involving water. Fill two shot glasses, one with whiskey and one with water. Place something thin like a credit card on top of the whiskey shot glass, and then place the water shot glass on top of that, upside down. Because the whiskey has a lighter density than the water, it slithers up the card and into the water shot glass. Water has a heavier density and trickles down. You’ll have a chaser and a whiskey shot before you know it! Whehter you drink the shot after or not, at the very least, it’s fun to watch (YouTube).

Rainbow Flames

It turns out that different metal salts produce different colored flames. If you add small amounts of different metal salts to alcohol and ignite them, you’ll get different colored flames dancing right before your eyes. This is a great experiment to do right before you decide to make a cocktail for yourself. It’s like having your very own show, right before your eyes. Different salts turn the flame different colors. Lithium is pink, potassium is violet, sodium is yellow, and copper is green (Science Notes).

Make Brownie Bourbon Bites

There’s nothing better than dessert and alcohol! All you need is bourbon, chocolate, pecans, butter, flour, and sugar! Combine the ingredients into a bowl, put it in the fridge for a couple hours, and then bake it in the oven. You’ll have yourself a delicious treat that’s flavored with your favorite alcohol. What a great way to end a long day at work. You could even take it a step further and make bourbon whipped cream to top off the brownie bites (Taste of Home).

The Perfect Ice Remover

Did you know alcohol is the perfect ice remover? That’s because alcohol has a low freezing point, and the lower the freezing point, the less likely it will be that the melted ice refreezes. You could play around with different alcohol and watch its effects on ice! Usually, you can use rubbing alcohol, but vodka is a great alternative. Just for fun, pour some vodka over ice and watch it melt. Compare it with the melting time of rum or tequila, though you might be pretty tipsy by the time you’re done comparing different liquors! And next time your driveway is covered in ice, grab that bottle of vodka and start pouring (Reddit).

Make Vodka Ice Cream

Why not put the two things you love the most into one? You can make vodka ice cream using liquid nitrogen and freezing the ingredients. You’ll need cream, sugar, vanilla or chocolate syrup, vodka, strawberries, and any other ice cream flavorings you want. Pour liquid nitrogen into the bowl and stir the ice cream. As it hardens, remove the spoon and pour more liquid nitrogen inside. Let the rest of the liquid nitrogen boil off before serving the ice cream. It’s time to get drunk (Thought Co).

Play With Fluorescein And Vodka

You know that fluorescent stuff in highlighters? That’s what you’re going to use for this next science experiment! Make sure you do this next one outside, since fluorescein has a tendency to stain anything it touches. Head to the shop and purchase 15 highlighter markers. Pull out the tubes of yellow coloring. Dripp a quarter-inch hose top to the lid of the bottle of vodka to squirt it out. To flush out the fluorescein, pump the vodka into the tube over a bowl. One the two are mixed together, you can put it in a saucepan and put it on simmer on a stove. Make sure there’s nothing flammable nearby, as this could potentially be dangerous. Once the alcohol evaporates, you can pour what’s left over into a bowl of water and shine a black light on it. You’ll have something spectacular right before your eyes. Who needs to travel to see the Northern Lights when you can see them in a bowl, inside your own home? (Lsop).

Cool Down With A Wine Slushie

While this isn’t necessarily a science experiment, you can still get creative and build your very own wine slushie! This is a great idea during those hot summer days when you need a quick way to relax and cool down. All you need is a sweet wine, sugar, water, and juice. Grab your trusted ice cream maker, combine the ingredients, and you have your very own slushie (All Recipes).

Make A DIY Thermometer

This one is pretty fun! Grab a bottle-necked glass bottle, water, food dye, vodka, and a straw. Pour equal parts water and vodka into the glass bottle, and then color it with food dye. Secure a straw inside the bottle, but make sure it doesn’t touch the bottom of the glass. Then, put the glass jar into hot water and watch the dye move up the straw! You can compare it to the level of dye by then placing it into cold water. When you’re done, you could even drink the solution. You’ll have yourself a colored mixed drink (Playing With Rain).

Tonic Water And Gin

We’re not talking about making a mixed drink here, though that might not be a bad idea after the science experiment. Tonic water glows in the dark when you place it under a black light, making it a great experiment companion, thanks to its quinine. This one is quite simple, if you have a black light lying around, grab it. Make yourself a delicious gin and tonic, turn off the lights, and turn on the black light. You’ll have a glowing drink right before your eyes as if you’re at a rave. You could even host your very own glow-in-the-dark party with this piece of knowledge. This experiment only takes a few minutes of your time. And the results are spectacular (Mind Over Munch).

Get Your Hands Dirty With Fluorescent Magic Mud

In elementary school, it’s very likely you made magic mud. You probably did it with your classmates and a lot of juice. Luckily, you can now do the same science experiment, but with a gin and tonic or whiskey. You could even combine the previous experiment and do two-for-one. Grab some potatoes, a food processor, strainer, tonic water, and two bowls. Chop the potatoes into small pieces and cover them with hot water in a bowl. After a few minutes, strain the potato bits from the water and keep the white layer. That white part is the stuff you want, and it looks a lot like milk.

If you mix it around, you’ll notice it acts as both a solid and a liquid. Strange, right? Let that stuff sit around for two days, until it turns into a white powder. Grab the tonic and pour it onto the white powder to turn it into magic mud. As we’ve learned, the quinine in tonic is fluorescent under a black light, so you’ll not only have magic mud, but you’ll have fluorescent magic mud. How fun does that sound? You can roll it around, and it feels a lot like pizza dough. Interestingly, the moment you stop rolling it around, it turns into liquidy goo. It could even double as a stress ball that melts when you stop moving it around (YouTube).

Make A Vodka Spiked Watermelon

Just as you would with the gummy bears, you can make a vodka-infused watermelon that’s delicious and tasty. It only takes about thirty minutes to prep. When this fruit is infused with liquor, it takes it to an entirely new level. Why not spice up your summertime with a bit of fun? Grab a meat injector, fill it with vodka, and inject it into your watermelon. Just make sure your kids don’t accidentally eat this vodka-infused fruit. The meat injector is a lot more effective than simply pouring the vodka into the watermelon since that can get quite messy (The Spruce Eats).

Watch How Leaves Change

As a kid, have you ever wondered how leaves change color? You can do your very own DIY leaf-changing experiment to find out how this happens! Head outside, grab a few different colored leaves and put them into a mason jar. Fill the jar with vodka and mash the leaves up as much as you can. Then, place the jars into hot water to heat them up, and wait a couple of hours. Then, grab a coffee filter. Pour drops of liquid from the leaf’s mason jars onto the filter and watch the beautiful, vibrant colors creep up the filter. If you wait overnight, you’ll get even more vibrant colors (Steam Powered Family).

Turn Jalapeños Yellow Using Tequila

You’ve probably had some wild nights out on tequila, ones you might not want to remember. Besides dancing on a bar, tequila has some other interesting properties that you might not know about. There’s a reason tequila goes with jalapeños, and it has more to do with than just the taste. You can use it to bleach jalapeños! Tequila also acts as a spot cleaner as vodka or rubbing alcohol does. But if you want to change the color of those jalapeños, use tequila. After soaking them for a night or two, it’ll change them into a pale yellow color. Best of all, you can drink the tequila afterwards, and even make an entire mason jar of spicy tequila. That’s some spicy shots! Keep it tucked away for special occasions, or when you want to see the look of pain on your friend’s faces (A Recipe For Fun).

Make Colored Rice

This one is fun and simple, and you could use the colored rice to decorate! Simply grab four Ziploc baggies. Fill them with rice and vodka, and then pour four different colors of food coloring into the baggies. Then, pour the rice onto baking sheets to let it dry. You’ll get rainbow rice! You could even eat the rice afterwards, though it will likely taste like vodka (Living Life and Learning).

Make A Handheld Fireball Using Tequila Or Vodka

This experiment is not to be taken lightly. You’re about to hold a ball of fire, so make sure you use precaution, and don’t do it if you’ve already had a few alcoholic beverages. The best way to protect yourself is to wear flame retardant gloves to perform the experiment successfully. Cut a two to six inch piece of fabric from a material like cotton or wool. This material does not catch fire at low temperatures. Roll it up and thread it into a ball. Grab that old bottle of tequila or vodka, both of which are highly flammable, and lather it up. Then, set it aflame. You can pick it up and hold it for a few seconds without getting burned before you should put it away (YouTube).

Make A Density Tower

Because liquids have all different densities, you could make your very own density tower with water, vegetable oil, and alcohol. Grab a clear glass bottle and pour three different liquids inside. You can use oil, water, and whiskey. Watch the magic happen! The liquids will all settle based on their different densities, making a colorful tower. This is all thanks to the different mass of molecules, and the denser ones sink to the bottom (Exploratorium).