How beautiful can your favourite drinks look?

The incredible shapes and colours of alcoholic drinks

Tequila

White Russian

American Amber Ale Beer

Australian Pale Lager Raw Square

Beer Japanese Dry Lager

Belgian Lambic

Belgian Tripel

Black Russian

Scotch Distilled

Cola

Cranberry Juice

English Oatmeal Stout

German Pilsener

Gin

Champagne

English Pure Brewed Lager

Beer Japanese Rice Lager

Pina Colada

Rum and Cola

Vodka Tonic

Vodka

Whiskey

These colourful pictures of alcoholic drinks under a microscope reveal the molecules that make up our favourite tipples.
Just like images of snowflakes, each drink is different – as seen here when magnified up to 1,000 times under a high tech laboratory microscope.

Produced by American firm Bevshots, they are on offer as art works for buyers who appreciate the hidden beauty of booze.
Capturing the tiny parts that make up favourite drinks like vodka, pina colada and Chablis, the pictures were taken in Florida State University’s chemistry department.

“What you can see in the magnified pictures are the crystalised carbohydrates that have become sugars and glucose,” explained Lester Hutt, 35, the founder of Bevshots. He explains, “Each image was created by using a pipette of each particular drink and squeezing a drop onto a slide. Then the droplets are allowed to dry out and the slide is placed under the microscope and a picture taken.”

It can take up to four weeks for the alcohol to dry out completely in an airtight container, and the whole process can take up to three months. Some drinks such as vodka do not have as many impurities in them as cocktails such as a pina colada. So when they break down into their constituent parts they can fall apart and not dry out properly. This means that photographing something like vodka can take up to 200 attempts to get it right.

Cocktails can have fruit and soft drinks in them which contain citric acids and complex sugars which dry out well and look great photographed. The incredible shapes and colours of the boozy artwork are highlighted by shining natural light on top and through the bottom of the slide. The images are taken using an old-fashioned 35mm camera.

“With my background in chemistry, I saw the potential in these kind of pictures and am so glad to be able to offer them up as art works. It is a pleasure to show people what makes up their favourite drinks and how beautiful it can look.” Said Lester.
Open for business since August 2009, Bevshots estimate that they have sold over 20,000 examples of their alcoholic art works.

Bevshots: website
Via: telegraph.co.uk