VOLT/AGED
Posted Under: Boiler Bar and Theater,Electrical,Tesla,Volt Aged
Starting the night my drinking buddies and I took over my wife’s Craft night to solve the problem of aging brandy before the “End of Ages” comes in 2012, we came across this single sentence in an old book from the 1930’s. “The treatment with pure oxygen gas with or without an electric burrent”. We discussed at long length what a burrent was and where we could get one, then decided it was a typo and they ment current. Fortunately I just happened to have a luminous transformer in my basement, fortunately for my house we were fresh out of oxygen (can you think of a more flammable cocktail)? A couple of clothespins, wire and a glass full of bitter brandy and we were ready. Not much could be seen as we pumped 15,000 volts into the brandy, but much to our surprise, once removed, the taste had smoothed considerably. We had drank to much at that point to finish the job, but settled on the name VOLT/AGED for our new process.
Several nights later we set up production at my shop in West Oakland and added a copper pipe system that featured a Jacobs ladder that could be short circuited in the drink to be “treated”. This gave the us the visual that was missing from the 1st night and more surface area in which the reaction could now take place. We now had a 15,000 volt cattle prod with plenty of places to grab that was going to be right in the middle of a bar!
The next day (slight hangover) we added the safety cage complete with vintage rivets, Oil Punk plexiglass, and a timer to keep track of how many years we wanted to age it.
It was a hugh hit at the Mouse Trap Party and made Jack Danell’s a sipping drink!
Come see this and more at Maker Faire
May 3-4
Reader Comments
‘Cuz everything is better with a Jacob’s Ladder attached to it.
Please be careful about the copper pipes. Under high voltages they WILL give ions into solution! I wouldn’t be too surprised if that explains the taste change. Copper is toxic, so don’t drink too much 😉 (Or get a water copper test kit from your favorite pet shop and apply it to destilled water with the ammount of alcohol in it that your brandy has )
What are your electrodes made from? Copper? Graphite?
Was it 2 negative rods, 2 positive rods, or both negative and positive? I bet there was a lot of hydrogen emission. lol No smoking while it’s running eh? 😉