# Swimming in wine **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 24, 2000, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swimming-in-wine/26662 "2000-07-24T17:33:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swimming-in-wine/26662/1 "2000-07-24T17:33:40Z")
According to this story, some poor gentleman died in an enormous vat of wine. Drowning is… suspected. My question is this: would a human body be more buoyant in wine as opposed to, say, pool water, or less buoyant? ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swimming-in-wine/26662/2 "2000-07-24T17:39:24Z")
His name wasn’t Clarence, was it? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swimming-in-wine/26662/3 "2000-07-24T17:41:08Z")
It was related of the Umayyad Caliph Malik II that he had a swimming pool filled with wine. He would dive in and gulp it while swimming around, to the extent that after he staggered out the level of the pool was visibly lessened. (See _History of the Arabs_ by Philip K. Hitti.) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swimming-in-wine/26662/4 "2000-07-24T18:21:03Z")
Right. And the Deke House (Delta Kappa Epsilon)at Colgate University has a sealed “chapel” which is rumored to have a large swimming pool filled with wine in it. (According to Pounstone in one of his "Big Secrets books, anyway.) If only it were true. According to my CRC Handbook the density of ethanol is 0.7893. If you ant to float more you want your liquid to have a GREATER density than water. Of course, wine is only 8% to 12% ethanol, so the effect isn’t large. You’d just sink a little easier. This would only contribute to the catastrophic toll of life in the great Sangria Pool. ---
**Author:** ![Guy\_Propski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5e9695/32.png) [@Guy\_Propski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guy_Propski)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swimming-in-wine/26662/5 "2000-07-24T20:57:56Z")
His drowning had nothing to do with his buoyancy. I suspect that he was eventually overcome from the alcoholic fumes and/or accidentally swallowing wine, passed out, then drowned. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swimming-in-wine/26662/6 "2000-07-24T21:23:57Z")
Let me guess. Rescuers tried to pull him out of the vat, but he managed to fight them off. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swimming-in-wine/26662/7 "2000-07-24T21:28:14Z")
I heard that he got out twice to take a leak 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swimming-in-wine/26662/8 "2000-07-24T21:46:38Z")
So alcohol is less dense than water, but that might be counterbalanced by the dissoved solids in the wine. And don’t even think of trying to tread Bacardi 151. ---
**Author:** ![tcburnett](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c5a1d2/32.png) [@tcburnett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tcburnett)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2000, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/swimming-in-wine/26662/9 "2000-07-24T22:13:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sofa King \* > \*\*My question is this: would a human body be more buoyant in wine as opposed to, say, pool water, or less buoyant? \*\* No one is really answering the question except Cal who says: “According to my CRC Handbook the density of ethanol is 0.7893. If you ant to float more you want your liquid to have a GREATER density than water.” Exactly. You would be most buoyant on a vat of mercury. But getting back to normality, a minor miracle for me, you will float best in salt water, the more saturated the better. The dead sea comes to mind. Then regular seawater, then fresh water. More pollution makes it smell and taste like shit, but you are more buoyant than in clean fresh water. Then distilled water, then oil and down to ether, which you cannot float in.