Day 2: After soaking for roughly 22 hours, it was time to check out the situation.

The bears appeared to have absorbed the majority of the vodka so that when the glass was turned on its side, only a small bit of liquid poured down the glass (as shown in Fig. 1.5). It was possible to separate the bears, although they were extremely gooey. I ate 2 but had to stop there, since I was heading out the door to work. They tasted soft and chewy and with a weak vodka taste, but resulted in no buzz or "silliness".

Day 3: Ah, the day of truth. Day 2 was merely a check-up day. Just to make sure it wasn't forming its own gasses and going to explode or growing some weird colony of microorganisms. This is what I ended up with by Day 3:

The gummy bears had bonded together, having formed their own goo with the alcohol sugar, and become a big ball of vodka jell-o. The substance surrounded them and resembled ecto-plasma:

I'm no scientist but unless Slimer was in my fridge, the only conclusion to be made is that the sugars from the vodka and candy managed to coagulate into goop. Very sticky goop. I'm thinking of marketing it as a powerful adhesive. Miraculously, I was able to separate the gummy bears with few slight tugs. (But had to wash my hands afterwards to remove the slime.)

Remember those little sponge animals you'd get as a kid and you'd soak them in water and they'd expand to 50 times their original size? That's sort of what I was expecting the gummy bears to do. I kept opening my fridge door thinking I'd find these freakishly huge candy bears growing out of the glass. I can't say I'm not disappointed. They did get slightly bigger, but it's hard to even tell. Since no test bears were kept to compare, I can't prove it and am probably just imagining it.

On this day, I ingested 15 of them and felt it. Not much or for very long, but it was a good sugar-alcohol buzz. This is good to note because 15 of them would be inconspicuous enough to eat in class or at work and be entirely unnoticed. (Not that I recommend drinking at school or on the job - not more than once a month anyhow.)

Day Four: The slime had pretty much disappeared. The gummy bears had begun to harden with their new vodka-goodness, all while looking like innocent gummy candy.

I ate the remainder of the bears - all 36 of them. (Next time, I shall do this with a heck of a lot more bears. I just wanted to make sure it worked.) I don't know if it's silly to do dishes and then veg on the sofa, but I sure felt silly after eating them. It might have been a psychosomatic reaction but I doubt it. It had to be at least two shots worth of vodka and that's going to give anyone a buzz.

This definitely opens up a whole window of opportunities. Vodka Gummy Worms, Goldschalger Cinnamon Bears, Rum Gummy Orange Wedges.... A trip to the liquor store and a jaunt to the candy store, and one could conceivably have an entire fridge full of alcoholic candy. Not to mention these would be great to take to the movies, play tricks on your friends with, or eat as you watch Saturday morning cartoons (technically it's not drinking before noon).

Cheers to Sarah for being clever enough to figure this out. Or if it wasn't her idea, at least for bothering to pass it on to someone who eventually passed it on to me.

Addendum: Some people -- and when I say that, I'm referring to my annoyingly cynical brother Andrew -- have asked an important question. A question that should apply to all science, because really this is what science is about. They've asked "Why?"

Why would one want to bother? Isn't it just easier to do a few shots of vodka and be done with it? It goes without saying that if you have to ask, this is not really a project for you. But to answer the question with a question, isn't it obvious? To illustrate for the awesome-impaired*, I made a nifty graph:

As you can see, Vodka + Gummy Bears is more than twice as cool as vodka alone, and almost three times as awesome as plain candy. If that chart doesn't resolve any doubts you might have, you might not want to consider a career in science. Or bartending. Or candy-making. In fact, just give up and become an accountant now.

- a very silly Tori
edited and added to on 8/24/04

*Andrew, this means you.