We have to make a density bottle with 5 different liquids including water. I have to include three solid “floaters” as well. What liquids should I use. I think I can use kerosene, but not other flammables.
Thanks,
Water, vegetable oil, motor oil, shampoo, and Mountain Dew.
I think that to make this work, you’d need to alternate “oily” and “watery” liquids, to prevent adjacent layers from diffusing together. Vegetable oil and motor oil, for instance, are probably intermiscable, and shampoo is likely to be intermiscable with oil or water.
I’ve seen this done with liquor. There’s a famous photo of a drink glass with about a dozen different layers of different liquors, each with a different color. But I bet it was terribly difficult to set up.
Mountain dew and water? Umm, won’t they mix? My teacher is going to shake it to see if it settles out.
You may be thinking of the pousse café. A typical recipe, including the densities of the liqours (relative to water), is:
Cognac (0.95398)
Blue Curacao (1.0963)
White Creme de Cacao (1.1229)
Parfait Amour (1.1269)
Green Creme de Menthe (1.1320)
Grenadine (1.3427)
Yes indeed, that appears to be the concoction, I recall the creme de menthe and blue curacao, I even recall seeing the photo with the densities listed just the same as you did it. Must’ve seen it in a chemistry textbook or something.
But some questions remain, is this drink as unpalatable as it sounds? And how do you drink it, layer by layer, or all in one big guzzle?
There is a picture that is really cool of the above drink in my most favorite book ever as a child - Matter, from the Life Science Library, 1965, Time-Life Incorporated. It’s also where I got the densities. I will try to scan it today and put a link in here, if people are interested. The problem is, putting a link in here would be seen as “advertising”, so I may not be able to. Maybe I could e-mail the .jpg to someone…
You drink it by dipping a straw down and sucking the layers out. I only ever had it once, and it was poorly-made and didn’t seperate well, but it was still cool. I’ve heard some people just slurp it all down, like a “suicide”, but good grief that must be awful. It was neat to order, but it cost $22 though…and many bars simply won’t do it for you.
We are literally on the same page. Now that you mention it, I remember that photo from that book specifically. I grew up with the Time-Life Science Library. How come TimeWarnerAOL doesn’t publish great books like that anymore?
A pousse-cafe or other layered drink isn’t that hard to make, with a little practise. I’ve only ever done them as shooters, but I’d assume a larger drink wouldn’t be that much harder. Just get the appropriate liquers and pour the bottom layer in first, slowly so as not to get it all over the sides of the glass. Next is the hard part - pour in layer #2. The way I was taught was to pour along the handle of a spoon, while holding the tip of this spoon right above the first liquer level, but careful not to touch it. Also, place the spoon tip against the side of the glass. Pour down the spoon, and judge your speed by how “messy” the interface is - if it’s pretty smooth, then you’re doing it right. These drinks won’t separate out again if mixed. Continue with as many layers as you wish. As for how to drink it, well that depends on the drink. As I said, I’ve only done shooters, so, so they get drank in one shot, though some involve lighting them on fire first, or other stuff done to them for the true “experience” of that particular drink.
Anyways, hope that helps at least with the making of whatever layers you’re doing to make, or at least with a future party! 
BTW - If you want a handy little bar book to learn recepies out of, I highly suggest *Mulligan’s Bar Guide to mixing, serving and otherwise consuming Cocktails, Liqueurs & Shooters *. Great barbook. Hell, it’s even the one we had at my job this summer!
Molten gold
Mercury
Molten Lead
Molten Glass
Ethanol
There. Now you will have the most hella-cool bottle. Just be sure to not inhale ANYTHING!
reddragon, I think you’re on to something there. You remind me of one of my favorite artworks. Back in the 1960s, there was a group called EAT, Experiments in Art and Technology. The idea was to team up artists with high-technology corporations and see if they could cook up any new ideas in the arts.
One artist worked with a company doing high-tech glasswork, they used special high temperature chambers to laminate layers of glass for things like spacecraft windows. An artist (darn it, can’t remember his name) made a little 4x4inch cube by stacking plates of glass with different colorations, heated them until they were just liquid enough to bond into one solid lump of glass, then let it cool. One of the plates has a circle cut through it. As the piece heated, some air was expelled, and as it cooled, the whole piece caved in slightly along the vertical axis, a subtle but visually pleasing detail.
When you view the piece from the side, you can see the slight changes in coloration of the glass, and then there’s a darker cobalt blue glass layer. And the whole thing is polished beautifully. It reminds me of your molten gold, lead, and glass concoction, frozen in a solid state.
Anyway, if you’re in Chicago, you can see this item at the Art Institute of Chicago, it’s in a tall glass case near the American postwar Modernism collection, down the hall past the armor collection.