Drinkable Clouds Get You Second-Hand Drunk

While the rise of electronic cigarettes and vaping has led to many aggravated bystanders, an installation in Germany may have found a vapor of a different ilk. Rather than nicotine, this cloud of vapors is full of tequila which precipitates out into glasses (or people) who happen to be nearby.

The cloud generator uses ultrasonic devices to vibrate the tequila molecules until they form a fine mist. The mist is delivered outward towards the sculpture, where a delicious cloud forms. From there, the cloud literally rains tequila out into its original, drinkable tequila form. It appears to take a while to gather enough tequila from the cloud, though, so there is a convenient tap on the side that will dispense it without all the rigmarole.

Basically this is a nebulizer which is using tequila and dispersing the output rather than directing it. You’re unlikely to get a large enough gasp for inebriation, but technically there is an opportunity a risk here of becoming second-hand drunk.

The installing is an effort by the Mexican Tourism Board to encourage Germans to take a break from the rain in favor of visiting sunny Mexico, we’d have to say that the effort seems to be a success. Once there, hopefully any visitors will be able to enjoy a perfect margarita or two as well.

30 thoughts on “Drinkable Clouds Get You Second-Hand Drunk

        1. It’s just like that with me, except instead of various liquors getting everyone kicked out it’s always Italian food, or anything containing tomato paste. How much do I hate life? No pizza when drinking heavily. Yeah, no fun. But, yeah, the tequila thing. I couldn’t drink tequila for years after a certain party, ya’ know, the smell… It was strong with the force.

  1. I’m at work so I can’t look up a link but I’m reminded of a scene from Parks and Rec about “the wrong way to drink alcohol.”

    Also, as I was typing this, my supervisor walked past and asked what in the hell I was reading…

  2. Cheap and stupid way to do this is a plastic soda bottle and an air compressor. Learned it from James and Oz on BBC.

    Add a shot or two, pressurize, and when you pop the seal you get a cloud of inhalable alcohol. Has to be bad for you.

  3. Something people may not anticipate: consuming alcohol by inhaling its vapor is significantly more dangerous for two reasons.

    First, it does not undergo first-pass hepatic metabolism, and so a much smaller amount of alcohol is required to reach the same BAC (e.g. see [1]); some people deliberately avoid first-pass metabolism (by inhalation, or, more rarely, rectal administration; any mucous membrane will do), since then they need less ethanol, and also reduce breath odor.

    Second, it allows to raise BAC faster (e.g. see [2], which also has a fairly extensive literature review), and, coupled with the fact that it’s not possible to stop uptake of alcohol by voiding the GI tract, it’s much easier to achieve a dangerous concentration of alcohol metabolites.

    [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4026961
    [2]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28054395

      1. Actually, no, there’s another method that only works for roughly half of the population, but reports are mixed on how well it actually works. My physiology prof claimed it does, some of the articles on the internet by people who tried claim it doesn’t.

        On a more serious note, rectal administration would probably make many therapeutic drugs much more predictable in action, since you don’t have to work against not easily predictable and variable action of hepatic enzymes. (And some of them, possible at all.) If only it wasn’t so gross…

      2. This is certainly a highly plausible explanation…

        For “those people”, who post like they are close to blackout drunk and have endured a hellfire seared butthole all day. …

    1. +1
      Not at all safe. People die doing this. It’s not always good to be an early adopter.
      No one is really sure what long term consequences there are from vaping either.
      It does look cool.

      1. It’s not a new technique; people have been doing it for a long time by e.g. pouring vodka on hot rocks in a sauna. Different way, same effect.

        I don’t think it has much to do with being an early adopter in any case. The consequences of using a much more direct route aren’t obscure. This is essentially the same difference as consuming, say, marijuana in form of plants (you’ll pass out long before you get a toxic dose) versus consuming JWH-013.

    2. thank you for pointing to this, i didn’t remember until i read your post. for me it doesn’t matter (i never drink) but it might be important (or even life-saving) for some people.

  4. Pretty saw I saw a device (might of been one of the first kickstarters but I think it was even before thart) that did this a few years ago, obviously, doing it on a larger scale is kinda cool too!

    1. I woke up one morning and without even having a coffee went out into the big room with the blue ceiling and dealt with reality, scary stuff but you have to try everything at least once, right?

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