Caution! Potent drinks ahead

A look at some of the world’s most dangerous and thrilling concoctions

If you are an adventurous drinker, there’s a range of concoctions that can you may want to try — at your own risk of course. Given that some of these mixes are outright obnoxious, it might be wise to mention here that if had irresponsibly, they can prove really, really dangerous. No list that speaks of dangerous drinks can start without making a mention of Absinthe, which is the poster bad boy of crazy drinks. Filled to the brim with hallucinogenic wormwood, it was even banned in the 19th century because it had been linked to epilepsy, tuberculosis and even madness. Of course, there are bottles of absinthe available everywhere today, and is a favourite drink for a lot of fun gatherings.

Another crazy drink — or not — is Vaportini. The alcohol is heated and the resultant vapour is inhaled through a straw. You know, why drink a tipple when you can inhale it, right And if you can inhale your drink, you can snort it too — a cocktail called Liquid Cocaine. It contains Bacardi 151, Goldschlager and Jägermeister, which is a combination so potent that only saying those three names together really fast may get you soaring high.

Notching things up further is the New Orleans Hand Grenade. It may come across as a rather run-of-the-mill cocktail, until you realise that one of the ingredients in your glass is pure ethanol. Now, ethanol is seriously nothing to scoff at. For those who don’t know, it happens to be one of the ingredients of rocket fuel!

And now for the bomb — Purple Drank. The name of this potent drink may sound weird, but don’t be too fooled because it has claimed several young lives already. This bottled drink comes with alcohol generously mixed with codeine and promethazine which are (now banned) ingredients for cough syrups. The drink is potent, the hallucinations legendary and you can be assured that if you survive, you aren’t getting a sore throat anytime soon!

Zubin is a corporate executive chef for Mars Enterprises, Mumbai.