Woman drinks Liquid nitrogen laced drink in bar.

[deejayburnout]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...shire-34277429

What i find scary is that serving these drinks is not illegal. I would expect stringent controls purely biased on COSHH assessment of the liquid nitrogen.

[Domestic_Ginger]

Used to work with a guy who's party trick was to retrieve a 50p from a dewer of nitrogen.

Faster than Bruce Lee!

[watercooled]

The Leidenfrost effect makes that quite possible. Same for dunking your hand in molten lead after dipping it in water. Just like you say, as long as you're quick.

WRT the article though, seriously who thought it was a good idea to serve it as a drink???

[Zak33]

thats a really crap fine! £100k.. for losing your instestine!

That's appalling!

[scaryjim]

Worth noting that the incident happened three years ago, so the law may have changed since. And someone thought it was a good idea because they saw it in a srubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishy bar in London and thought it was just the thing for Lancaster (they're like that up there ).

One of the articles I read pointed out that it was a perfectly safe practice as long as you make sure the LN has completely evaporated before drinking it.

As to the extent of the fine, one suspects that the court reasonably took account of the fact that any sensible person would understand that there was a risk involved with a drink containing liquid nitrogen. While it seems the bar staff were over-confident about the safety of the drink and didn't ensure the LN was properly evaporated, ultimately she knew the LN was in it and chose to pour it down her own throat, so she has to take some responsibility for her actions, even if she was misinformed.

[Domestic_Ginger]

I think the bar staff may have poured an extra smokey one. The liquid part of the drink must freeze so I presume they settle the nitrogen on top?

28g of liquid nitrogen expands to 22 litres of gas.

[Knoxville]

I'm not really that shocked that it's legal to serve drinks like that but I am surprised that the COSHH and risk assessments don't call for the kind of training and storage that would make it cost prohibitive anywhere but a srubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishy London cocktail bar... It's still a daft thing to serve regardless though. I have never once looked at a shot of Jagermeister and thought "You know what, unless I throw a dash of liquid nitrogen in there it's just not exciting enough".

Would I drink it? Maybe under the right conditions, if I trusted the person preparing it... Would I pay £3.95 to have someone I've never met before chuck some liquid nitrogen in some Jager? No.

[peterb]

I think the bar staff may have poured an extra smokey one. The liquid part of the drink must freeze so I presume they settle the nitrogen on top?

28g of liquid nitrogen expands to 22 litres of gas.

I suppose chilling it to such extremes it's the only way of making jaegermeister even remotely palatable.

From the reports, it seems that it was the explosive expansion of the liquid nitrogen that did the most damamge, although I shudder to think about the tissue damage from the initial freezing.

[deejayburnout]

I suppose chilling it to such extremes it's the only way of making jaegermeister even remotely palatable.

Never actually tasted it before. Stopped drinking just before i heard about it.

[outwar6010]

Does that mean without a stomach she can only consume food in liquid form now?

[TooNice]

To be fair, liquid nitrogen has been safely used for making ice-cream in various places for a number of years now, so the idea of mixing it in drinks doesn't shock me. Though perhaps there is a difference in how they use the liquid nitrogen. As ice-cream there is a few minutes between the gas is released and the product is handed to the customer. By that point the temperature isn't that much below zero degree (right after it is made, the temperature is no lower than -30ish C, and that is before it is served). I wonder what temperature it must have been when the drink was served.. and if it was downed.

Actually the only place I miss from the UK after coming to Japan, was my favourite ice-cream place in London (Chin Chin Labs - Google and you will see plenty of, in my opinion well deserved high rating).

The only thing I find a bit surprising is the lack of any legal requirement for handling liquid nitrogen (I actually asked shop owners in both country out of curiosity).

[scaryjim]

Does that mean without a stomach she can only consume food in liquid form now?

Doubt it - the stomach doesn't really deal with the solidity of your food; that's mostly done through chewing. It does mean that the food heading through her intestines hasn't been bathed in acid, though - almost certainly makes it harder to extract nutrients from it, adn I suspect it means she has to have some kind of supplement to ensure she gets enough calories.

I suspect there are some foods that she can't eat at all, and according to the articles about it pretty much everything she eats causes her some degree of pain. Gastric bypass surgery isn't all that uncommon, but usually it's done voluntarily as an extreme form of weight control...

[badass]

As to the extent of the fine, one suspects that the court reasonably took account of the fact that any sensible person would understand that there was a risk involved with a drink containing liquid nitrogen. While it seems the bar staff were over-confident about the safety of the drink and didn't ensure the LN was properly evaporated, ultimately she knew the LN was in it and chose to pour it down her own throat, so she has to take some responsibility for her actions, even if she was misinformed.

Really? A person (particularly a young person) in a bar that serves alcoholic drinks (i.e. drinks contaning a drug that impairs one's judgement) should realise that the drink might be dangerous considering it was being served.
If the judge even put 0.001% culpability on the girl then they are a useless waste of taxpayers money.

[scaryjim]

Really? A person (particularly a young person) in a bar that serves alcoholic drinks (i.e. drinks contaning a drug that impairs one's judgement) should realise that the drink might be dangerous considering it was being served. ...

She knew the drink had liquid nitrogen in it. She was misguided by the staff member who responded to her query about the safety of the drink, but the fact that she asked if it was safe to drink it strongly implies she knew there was a risk. I find it quite staggering that the bar owners claim they didn't know about the dangers of ingesting liquid nitrogen - that's tantamount to admitting you're a complete idiot...

Plus let's not lose sight of the fact that the fine being reported was for the health and safety breach - it's not a compensation settlement. And paying the fine will be an admission of liability, opening the way for a compensation claim against the bar. I don't think it's necessarily fair to say they've got away lightly, considering the level of fines handed out for statutory offences in the UK: £100k is a pretty hefty licensing fine in the general scheme of things (the maximum fine for selling alcohol to someone under 18 is only £5k, for instance).

[dturtill]

whilst the staff should have been properly trained in the handling and serving of this there should really be a liabilty clause for this the same is if you order a flaming sambucca and then get burned as it should be known that there are possible risks and as such be aware

[shaithis]

She knew the drink had liquid nitrogen in it. She was misguided by the staff member who responded to her query about the safety of the drink, but the fact that she asked if it was safe to drink it strongly implies she knew there was a risk. I find it quite staggering that the bar owners claim they didn't know about the dangers of ingesting liquid nitrogen - that's tantamount to admitting you're a complete idiot...

I would have thought that the reason she asked was that she wasn't sure, else surely she would have said "No thanks". When your unsure, you ask someone who you believe to be better informed (in this case, the bar staff). As the bar staff are serving people who are almost certainly "under the influence", then they are the ones at fault, no matter how I look at it.