Thursday, April 5, 2007

Results of Peeps vodka, and second test of grape

The day after beginning our morally ambiguous Marshmallow Peeps vodka, we discovered that the remaining lumps of goo can be easily dissolved by shaking the jar vigorously a few times. Once dissolved, we tasted the vodka; this first tasting was not done in full accordance with scientific controls, so we have no pictures. We decided that at this time, the vodka had very little taste, only a vague sweetness on the back end. We decided to add two more Peeps -- for a total of four -- and give it another day.

The next night, we shook the remaining marshmallow into oblivion and conducted a legitimate test -- if anything related to Peeps vodka could be considered legitimate. The vodka was a light lavender, with eight carnauba wax Peep eyes disturbingly floating around intact:



Now, though the Mad Scienticians have not personally experienced Peeps in conjunction with liquor before this experiment, our friends have told us the tale of one previous occurrence. One of our friends concocted a drink whose configuration I am unaware of, but it contained vodka, and was topped with whipped cream and a single Peep. But these were not just any Peeps; they were the Valentine's Day strawberry hearts. These Peeps are so sickeningly sweet, I cannot eat them, and I like regular Peeps. Needless to say, the drink was a horrible failure, and was rejected by at least one stomach.

With that knowledge, we had no expectation for our Peeps vodka to turn out particularly well. Like Oppenheimer before us, we developed Peeps vodka because it had to be done, regardless of our personal feelings about the work. But even we didn't expect what happened next.

Wayland took the hit for science, and tested the vodka first:



As longtime readers will know, we don't use straight-off-the-shelf vodka for our experiments. As we described in our initial post, we purchase cheap, bottom-shelf Vladimir vodka, and filter it through a Pur water filter five times. This removes most of the impurities and transforms the vodka into a smooth, middle-shelf grade.

Somehow, however, the Peeps have reversed this process. The Peeps apparently contain enough artificial components that they re-introduced the impurities that we had taken such pains to remove. This, combined with the sickly sugary sweetness of four liquefied Peeps, made for what may be the worst alcoholic beverage we have ever tasted.



We decided there was only one thing we could do with this experiment. It will become a display piece for future parties, possibly atop our fridge next to the Water of Life. This is the mysterious blue bottle which you may have seen in the background of many of our photos, including the above. The Water of Life is a concoction created by an old friend of ours several years ago. The first batch was a delightful, refreshing mix of liquors and liqueurs; the second batch, however, included a disproportionate amount of peppermint schnapps, which made the drink taste like toothpaste. This batch was eventually dubbed a "bottle of stupid," and was handed over to us to get rid of it.

If the Peeps vodka is destined to have a place next to the Water of Life, we shall have to find an extremely nifty bottle that the vodka doesn't come close to deserving. Until then, it will be hidden away in shame. We will probably pull it out for parties for display purposes only, though we haven't ruled out daring first-time visitors to try it.

But first, just to ensure that this remains the most monstrous, toxic beverage in this or any other laboratory, we added another two Peeps, bringing the total to six. We did this mainly to deeply disturb visitors by increasing the number of Peep eyeballs.





We also sampled the grape vodka the same night, though in retrospect, we should have tested it before the Peeps vodka. Alas, it was my turn to go first.



I cannot blame this reaction entirely on the grape vodka. I am convinced that the preceding test of the Peeps vodka tainted my palate (and digestive tract) for the night. That said, the grape vodka is not very good at this point.



Neither of us detected any grape taste. It seems to have somehow regressed since last week's test.

We decided to put it back in the fridge for another week of infusion, but if there's no improvement by then, we may have to scrap this experiment and try a different methodology.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had such high hopes for both vodkas. Hopefully another week will help the grape!

Greg said...

I just wrote about how much I hated those damn marshmallow things and now I see you have ruined perfectly good vodka!!

Great site..

Greg
www.denvertvguy.com

Anonymous said...

Um, Greg, you did notice what kind of vodka they were using, right?

Road to Hell said...

Those damned peeps! I guess they got their revenge...

Brendan said...

Peeps always get their revenge.

Road to Hell said...

That's it. As soon as I get home I'm microwaving those suckers!

Anonymous said...

The colour reminds me a bit of meths the paint tinner.