Is there anyway to describe the appeal? Do other animals (your dog, say) respond favorably to it? It seems pretty “unnatural.”
Our African Grey will drink apple juice, orange juice, water, hot chocolate, grape juice, cranberry juice, and a few other juices from my cup. He does not like any carbonated liquids. They actually piss him off; he’ll try to forcefully spill them.
I have a sodastream. Carbonated water is my favorite non-alcoholic drink.
It stimulates our taste buds in a delightful manner!
Pain. The CO2 in the bubbles hurts just slightly, which affects the taste.
Theme song for the thread.
Just to comment on this, have had natural carbonated water right out of the well spring in the earth, so yes it is natural, but overall rare. Most of what you get is artificial and contains more carbonation then what i tasted out of the ground, but natural stuff can be carbonated and form bubbles.
And Mentos-and-Coke-like geysers. (Except not brown.)
Bring your own Scotch.
Humans are so weird.
Capsaicin causes a painful burning sensation in mammals and certain plants (especially fruit-bearing ones like peppers) evolved to contain the chemical so that non-mammalian creatures like birds will spread the seeds further than some wolf or rat that might just poop out the seeds 5 yards away.
Then along comes a human who takes a bite, turns red, screams in pain, rinses his mouth out then says, “Delicious, give me more!”
We are such masochists.
Wasn’t pepper originally used to make spoiled food palatable?
I guess some people began to like the taste.
Gets us drunker faster. Maybe not the reason, but a reason.
I tried to make a bourbon and soda out of some naturally carbonated water that I collected seeping out of the ground in a bay at low tide. The moment the alcohol hit the water it turned a dark purple almost black color. I still drank it and it still got me drunk but does anyone know what minerals/chemical would turn a liquid black when mixed with alcohol.
No, because:
A) originally spices were very expensive. Those who could afford spices could afford fresh meat.
B) It doesn’t work Spiced rotten meat still tastes rotten.
My wife and I are so addicted that we gave up the Sodastream and bought a CO2 tank and the adapter to pressurize used 2 liter bottles.
When I cut myself, I half expect my blood to be fizzy.
Do you still remember what parts you got to do this? I have one of those isi 1 liter soda siphons. They cost about $.60 a liter which is pretty expensive for few grams of CO2.
Here’s a pre-configured set up like mine.
You might be able to buy the parts cheaper. Almost certainly your local home brew supply store will have all this if you don’t want to mail order. The cost upfront is not significant, but the refills on that 5 pound bottle will only run in the neighborhood of 10 bucks. And that should get you 175 to 200 fizzed 2L bottles.
I recommend the metal caps over the plastic. The plastic ones can be hard to attach and detach from the filler in my experience.
Stick with branch water.
Well, fuck junior high history class.
:dubious:
Humans and some other animals eat strange things with either pain potential or psychological effects…I think it is because we enjoy the novelty of different mental states.
Carbonation may mildly stimulate our pain receptors. Try chewing a new stick of wintergreen or mint gum and sipping a coke! Wow! You will understand the boundary of pain and pleasure!
However…
Black pepper is a completely different spice than chili peppers, which are the ones that burn the mouth.
Not to highjack the thread, but some additional info to clear any confusion regarding pepper. Neither of these are physco active
Black pepper is a form of fruit called a drupe, which can be seen in whole peppercorns. I cannot find references for the biological purpose of the chemical peperine. Black pepper is in the botanical family Piperaceae, and is native to India - but is now grown elsewhere, with Vietnam being the greatest producer
As noted by Atamasama, Chili peppers have capsaicin is an adaption to favor birds eating the fruit and scattering the seeds widely after they go through the digestive tract. Chili peppers are native to the Americas, where they were domesticated by the original natives. They range from bell peppers to Scotch Bonnets (mild to wildly hot), and now form part of the worldwide cuisine.