OT: How do you make a cocktail with liquid nitrogen?

[Tim+]

I suppose it could be DIY related. ;-)

More seriously, I just don't understand what happened here.

"A teenager has had emergency surgery to remove her stomach after drinking a cocktail containing liquid nitrogen. Lancashire Police say Gaby Scanlon was out with friends in Lancaster last Thursday (4 October) when it happened. The 18-year-old is reported to have become breathless and developed severe stomach pain before being taken to Royal Lancaster Infirmary. Officers say she would have died if doctors had not performed the operation."

How on earth do you make a drinkable cocktail with liquid nitrogen unless you serve it from a thermos flask?

Seems much more likely to me that dry ice was involved (and she swallowed a lump) but even that seems pretty implausible. Seems an utterly reckless thing for any bar to do in either case.

Tim

[larkim]

I don't think there's any dispute that it was liquid nitrogen - its become a staple of masterchef etc. Still completely nuts.

Matt

[Tim+]

Yeah, a bit of googling suggests that I've lead a sheltered life. ;-)

It astonishes me that a substance that must have a *huge* pile of health and safety regulations concerning its handling can be poured into a glass and sold to a paying punter, to drink.

Just bonkers.

Tim

[Martin Brown]

Probably LN2 is an ingredient and the other most likely vodka or another clear spirit. LN2 is fashionable in the hyper modern Heston B era. I can't see Waitrose stocking DIY kits for this any time soon.

I suspect that you end up with a fine water ice slush in extremely cold ethyl alcohol which remains a liquid down to -110C. A dash too much LN2 in the mix and the cocktail would it seems become pretty lethal.

Freezing the stomach wall this way would not be good. I am a bit surprised it did not do other serious damage on the way down.

I wonder if they were using food grade LN2?

Reckless yes, but I recall way back having Pan-Galactic-Gargle-Blasters of H2G2 at university that used lumps of dry ice in the recipe.

Cutting it up with a hot knife was always amusing. It howls in protest. (do not try this at home)

[Tim+]

Been there, done that. ;-)

Tim

[Tim Streater]

• a few

[charles]

I doubt if it was the bar. More likely one of her "friends" added it to her drink

[Tim Watts]

No, it was LN2 and the bar were selling them.

The papers are possibly inaccurate - I have seen tweets suggesting it was a partial stomach removal.

Even so, I did read an article about someone who had a full stomach removal (90% risk of cancer due to genetics) and, very surprisingly, to me at least, it seems the body adapts the bit of the intestine that is reconnected to the oesophogus to take on more "stomachy" functions. Apparantly a normal diet is mostly possible with only some foods that depended on the acid environment in the old stomach being a problem. Meals are smaller and taken more often.

I had visions of being reduced to baby food.

even so, deeply unpleasant and painful. I assume a bit of LN2 went down and expanded rapidly (shortness of breath) then caused a rupture.

Bloody stupid thing to be selling as an edible product.

Tim

[harry]

And where do you get liquid nitrogen from?

[Dave Liquorice]

You need to get out more. B-) It was liquid nitrogen and a bought cocktail a "Nitro Jagermeister" according to The Sun:

[Tim+]

The air, probably via BOC.

[Brian Gaff]

Sounds like a clueless student prank gone wrong to me.

Brian

[Andrew Gabriel]

It tends to keep off room temperature (body temperature) things because the boiling on contact generates a layer of nitrogen between the surface and the liquid. Obviously this cools the surface, but if the liquid has passed by quickly, you're probably OK. I recall a chemistry teacher who with shakey hands would pour half of it over him rather than into whatever it was meant to be going in, but that was pretty harmless.

Now, if it pools in the stomach, that's going to be a completely different matter. It can't run off, and will freeze the stomach lining (and further out if there's enough of it). The report I heard said she was struggling for breath - I did wonder if a large amount of nitrogen gas coming up your esophagus might present a problem getting enough oxygen into the lungs.

[Andrew Gabriel]

and pick it up a few hours later. It was quite cheap, and it came with their 2-3 deliveries per day of drugs. There was a deposit on the flask, but you could alternatively buy a polystyrene bucket to pour in in, so you didn't take the flask away with you. They sometimes had a little without having to order which you could get for free - I guessed some strange drugs must have been supplied in it.

[GMM]

Apart from the temperature issues, anyone who has used liquid nitrogen will= know that once it evaporates you are always left with a thick gungy grease= that tends to come with it, which I wouldn't have thought would add to the= experience much! Unless they make a special cocktail grade now of course.= .....

[Martin Brown]

Yes. I know that handling LN2 is generally safer without the approved PPE gloves provided that you never touch any chilled metal. LN2 itself bounces off and now having seen the drinks involved it is clear that they are served with LN2 inside and with Leidenfrost allowing the LN2 to persist for a while with bubbles around it in the bulk liquid.

Drinking one as a down in one single shot at this stage would put LN2 directly into the stomach - a situation that the writers of the BOC MSDS apparently could not imagine (and I think with good reason).

It seems to me that the bar is liable for putting a noxious substance in the girls drink - it will be an interesting insurance claim.

Indeed. Though I suspect the biggest problem was the sudden change in volume as the LN2 became gaseous. And the tendency of frozen things to be rather brittle at LN2 temperatures. I know someone who hammers nails into a plank using a banana dipped in LN2 as a schools demo.

I am surprised that she didn't immediately vomit the stuff back up.

Breathing pure nitrogen even for just a few breaths leads to immediate unconsciousness followed very rapidly by death. There have been many tragic industrial accidents with people going into an inert nitrogen atmosphere passing out and then would be rescuers also dying through not putting on a normal air set before going to their aid.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I could use some for freeing soft fruit and veg..

[Adam Funk]

When my dad was a kid, he could go to the store near my grandparents' farm and buy a couple of small sticks of dynamite to get rid of stumps.

[Tim Watts]

Food grade I assume - same as they use for fast freezing certain products.

[Tim+]

You have to worry about the standard of science education when someone can come out with this twaddle.

Science writer and fellow at the Royal Society of Chemistry John Emsley says if more than a "trivial" amount of liquid nitrogen is swallowed, the result can be horrendous.

"If you drank more than a few drops of liquid nitrogen, certainly a teaspoon, it would freeze, and become solid and brittle like glass. Imagine if that happened in the alimentary canal or the stomach.

"The liquid also quickly picks up heat, boils and becomes a gas, which could cause damage such as perforations or cause a stomach to burst," he says.

Tim