Playing with food: multi-colored drinks

September 29, 2011

Idea

This actually happened completely by chance, as a few years ago I decided to mix blue gatorade and sprite to see how it would taste. The mix worked out pretty well, but I found that the gatorade was on top, while the bottom half of the glass was only sprite, which created a nice color gradient in the drink. Since that time I haven't been able to replicate this occurrence, until now! I found a completely scientific method to create the multi-colored drink.

Process

1. Pick two different-colored drinks to mix. Best choice will be one diet and one non-diet.
2. Choose which one needs to go on the bottom. This will be determined by the drink's density. Non-diet drinks are heavier than diet ones, and carbonated seem to be heavier than non-carbonated. So non-diet and carbonated drinks go on the bottom.
3. Fill the cup all the way to the top with ice. This is important because otherwise the drink comes in at too much speed and mixes together. This is probably the most important step!
4. Starting with the drink to be on the bottom, fill the cup no more than half-way with it. Be careful with the timing because the ice makes it look like the cup is emptier than it actually is.
5. Then fill the rest with the lighter drink.
6. Amaze everyone with your advanced knowledge of physics.

Examples

Blue gatorade floats on sprite:

Diet coke also floats on sprite (the taste isn't as great):

Also, diet lemonade floats on non-diet coke (inverse of above) but the taste is downright terrible.