In a room filled with gin and tonic vapour, don’t expect to get drunk
A room filled with alcohol mist might sound like a wild night out, but don’t expect it to get you wasted.
As part of the Australian production Fear & Delight, a dinner theatre spectacle at the Brisbane Festival, a room is filled with vaporised gin and tonic for the audience to absorb through their lungs and eyes.
This is in collaboration with UK-based culinary designers, Bompas and Parr, whose previous vaporised cocktail experience in London provided a similar, alcoholic fog induced experience.
Although it may sound like a dangerous experiment, Hackensack University Medical Center pulmonologist Eugene Santomauro isn’t concerned about it from a medical standpoint.
He tells Mashable, “I don’t think you have to worry too much about mist … Medications (like nasal sprays) that we use are alcohol-based, and [nebulizer medicines] are consumed on a daily basis.”
This theatre-cum-science-experiment is the brainchild of Australian director Scott Maidment, whose production launches Sept. 4 and runs through Sept. 25 as part of Brisbane Festival 2015.
Maidment told The Guardian he wants the audience to taste the elements of the gin and tonic and for it to stimulate them, versus just getting them drunk. He says people won’t even be in the space long enough to absorb the equivalent of one gin and tonic.
“It’s actually healthier for you … because it’s not affecting your liver,” Maidment said.
Bompas and Parr not only operated their own vaporised alcohol bar in London but also recently helped launch Fear & Delight in Adelaide, where there were apparently no complaints about health concerns.
The installation designers ensure the safety of visitors by consulting biochemists and respiratory experts from the Centre for Altitude Space and Extreme Environment Medicine to decide on the ideal ratio of alcohol to mixer, according to The Guardian.
Sam Bompas, one of Bompas and Parr’s founders, gave Mashable the scoop on the vibe that vaporised cocktail air gives the room: “The cloud is entirely composed of fine spirits and mixer at a ratio of 1:3 and made using powerful humidifiers to super saturate the air. With humidity at 140% you can see less than a metre, there’s so much alcohol in the air.”
More than anything, it sounds like a creative marketing ploy, with alcohol-filled sweat as an added bonus. It is probably best to hit the bar beforehand.
Mashable reached out to Maidment for comment but received none by the time of publication.
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