This article is simply cromulent.
A Liquid Nitrogen Cocktail Party
21–30 of 69 posts
Re: A Liquid Nitrogen Cocktail Party
#22Summing up a bunch of comments, rather than littering the thread: * There is no LN present in the final product. LN is literally nitrogen in liquid state, and nitrogen is gaseous at sane temperatures. You add it in relatively small amounts, and it evaporates away. It is absolutely not safe to consume LN. * Yes: you need to ask your LN supplier if the LN is food-safe. This is an easier thing to verify than that a dewa…
I am very jealous! I have a blog about cocktails and am trying to do every recipe in that book at home. I can't wait to do the LN stuff. I just have to talk Praxair into delivering it to me so I can buy a handful of thermoses rather than a $1,500 dewar. (And god knows how I'm going to get my hands on a food-safe rotovap.) I was even thinking about loading it into a cooler with a spigot on the side.
The cryo-garnishing is cool! I've seen the end result at Aviary. Most of them you wait to thaw anyway. Like separating the citrus or berries into vessicles. Just wait until they aren't hard anymore and then top the drink with them.
Re: A Liquid Nitrogen Cocktail Party
#23The article warns about the possible hazards, but it's worth reiterating: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/oct/08/teenager-stomach-l...
That person consumed actual liquid nitrogen. The cardinal rule of culinary liquid nitrogen: don't ever serve a guest liquid nitrogen. The nitro-muddling technique in L.I. is designed in multiple stages to prevent that from ever happening; for instance, if you shake a drink with LN still in it, you'll hurt yourself before you manage to serve a guest LN. You're not wrong, though. You need to know what you're doing or y…
I was at a tiki bar last week that served drinks with dry ice in it, with a straw! So, so bad. I don't think you should ever give people dry ice, especially when they've been drinking. But if you did, the theory behind its safety is that it sinks to the bottom, so the drinker couldn't really consume it. But with a straw, if it got to a small enough size you could easily suck a pebble in, and the results would be at best very painful.
Maybe I'm wrong and it's not that dangerous, but I don't think I'd do it if I owned a bar.
Re: A Liquid Nitrogen Cocktail Party
#24Interesting fact about liquid nitrogen (that I learned from Dave Arnold's book, which is fantastic): liquid nitrogen is ~700x denser than gaseous nitrogen.
So, if you vaporize a moderate amount of liquid in a contained space (e.g. spilling a dewar in a car or elevator): even if you manage to avoid touching the nitrogen itself, the gas can crowd out the oxygen and you can asphyxiate yourself. Since it's odorless and colorless, you probably wouldn't even notice.
So ... if you do try this at home, be especially careful when transporting nitrogen!!
Re: A Liquid Nitrogen Cocktail Party
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
That person consumed actual liquid nitrogen. The cardinal rule of culinary liquid nitrogen: don't ever serve a guest liquid nitrogen. The nitro-muddling technique in L.I. is designed in multiple stages to prevent that from ever happening; for instance, if you shake a drink with LN still in it, you'll hurt yourself before you manage to serve a guest LN. You're not wrong, though. You need to know what you're doing or y…
I feel really dense asking this, but I don't have the faintest idea how the procedures you've mentioned prevent consumption of liquid nitrogen. When chilling a glass, you dump out the LN. OK. That makes some sense. But then when making ice cream, you put LN directly into the bowl while mixing. Huh? edit: I can see why you don't want to provide too many details. I will just say this story, while very interesting, terr…
I have seen stands at local fairs that make LN ice cream to order. It's pretty neat. I haven't done it, but they have 16 year olds doing it presumably without incident.
Re: A Liquid Nitrogen Cocktail Party
#26I'm thinking of buying Liquid Intelligence for my sister and brother-in-law, but I'm half-worried they'll think I'm subtly trying to kill them.
I'd recommend it. It's useful if nothing else for the stuff on dilution, cocktail balancing (acid/abv/sugar percentages), and batching. It's helpful even for classic cocktails.
Most of the stuff in it is not dangerous. However unless they're nerdy and willing to spend, they're not going to get much out of the modernist stuff. I'd say bare minimum you need to build a home carbonation rig (~$150ish) or buy an ISI Whip and some CO2/N20 cartridges (similar price all-in) and some Pectinex Ultra-SPL ($15 after shipping) to do anything interesting.
Re: A Liquid Nitrogen Cocktail Party
#27Interesting fact about liquid nitrogen (that I learned from Dave Arnold's book, which is fantastic): liquid nitrogen is ~700x denser than gaseous nitrogen. So, if you vaporize a moderate amount of liquid in a contained space (e.g. spilling a dewar in a car or elevator): even if you manage to avoid touching the nitrogen itself, the gas can crowd out the oxygen and you can asphyxiate yourself. Since it's odorless and c…
Not just transporting it, but in your kitchen too. A professional kitchen that uses it should have an oxygen monitor so they can evacuate if it goes off.
Also, don't screw a lid onto anything containing it or it becomes a live grenade.
Re: A Liquid Nitrogen Cocktail Party
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
The trouble isn't the recipe. The trouble is in people following it, while probably drunk.
Yes. The second cardinal rule: guests don't get to play with LN. Three people at our party were allowed to handle it. I mention this in the post, under "isolation".
Sorry for getting my safety hat on, am not meaning to rain on your parade. I think this is really cool and want to try it too.