31. Cheat and Win a Drinking Race
class: tweener | impressiveness: 4/5 | factors: big setup, fun payoff | requires: tall bendy straws, pint glasses, bottles of beer | watch full episode
Next, you’re going to challenge your friends to a drinking race that you’re guaranteed to win… It’s all about physics, man.
The Setup: Grab a couple of bottles of beer (or soda) and a bendy straw that’s at least as tall as your bottle. Place pint glasses next to them and set up the following challenge:
The Challenge: Without moving the bottles (imagine they’re glued to the table), be the first to get all the beer from your bottle into the pint glass.
Oh, and all the liquid must pass through the straw.
As soon as you say go, most people will start slurping up mouthfuls of beer and spitting them into the pint glass. Others will do that thing where you place their finger over the top to trap the liquid one straw-full at a time. But you, on the other hand…
The Solution: Give them as much of a head start as you’d like, then bend the top of your straw over and aim for the pint glass. Seal your mouth over the bottle and the straw, then blow. The internal increase in pressure will shoot the beer out of the straw and into the pint glass.
When done correctly, it’ll look like you’ve turned your bottle into a keg tap, and all of the liquid will shoot through in less than 20 seconds.
Remember that it is important that your straw reach all the way to the bottom of the bottle. Otherwise, you’re only going to get down to the bottom quarter or so of the drink and feel like a chump.
Watch Demonstration (External link)
Hypothetically, I suppose you could use this same technique in a real drinking race. Not that I recommend it, but if you were to race your friends to see who can down a (root?) beer the fastest, you can get an unfair advantage by placing bendy-straw in your bottle as you drink. The straw will allow air inside as you drink, eliminating the need to pause and let air bubble back into the bottle.
Then you’d be able to drink the whole tasty beverage in one fast motion, much faster than your friends.
...Hypothetically.