HOWTO mix a grody-looking Alien Brain Hemorrhage cocktail

This revolting thing is a cocktail called an "Alien Brain Hemorrhage": "To make an alien brain hemorrhage cocktail, fill a shot glass halfway with peach schnapps. Gently pour Bailey's Irish Cream on top. After the shot is almost full, carefully add a small amount of blue curacao. After it settles, add a few drops of grenadine syrup." Looks like it could be improved with a couple lumps of dry ice.

Alien Brain Hemorrhage Cocktail Recipe 2012 Drink Pic (via Neatorama)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: booze • Food • gross • not food • science fiction • Weird

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http://twitter.com/EsElQueso Adam Gillitt

I think this calls for something stronger than a unicorn chaser.
nixiebunny

Who would have thought that an alien brain could be created from such tasty liqueurs?
noah django

my bartender roommate avers that this shot tastes nasty
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  The taste is OK, it’s the lumpiness I couldn’t get past.
- alphagirl
  
  I can’t attest to this particular version, but I have made a variant that leaves out the curacao, and it tastes just like peach gummy candies. Not bad at all.
Chris Ingram

Oh FFS BoingBoing, what is the world coming to when you use terms like ‘grody’?

Do you mean Grotty?
- Ipo
  
  grody: Nasty, repulsive, dirty, disgusting, foul, revolting, nauseating, yucky.
  grotty: Grotesque.
  
  From Scottish Gaelic: grod.
  - hassan-i-sabbah
    
    From Valley Girl: Grody to the max
    Also: gag me with a spoon.
    - Guest
      
      gag me with a haemmorhage.
    - GuyInMilwaukee
      
      The saying in our high school was: gag me with an aborted smurf. I have no idea what that was supposed to mean.
  - mike list
    
    i thought ‘groaty’ was the way to spell it in english. grody looks/sounds like a bad parody of an irish surname.
    
    while we’re on the subject, does anyone remember when the sports term ‘seeded’ was ‘ceded’? illiteracy/entropy increases.
    - ryuthrowsstuff
      
      pretty sure groaty would be the adjective form of groat, meaning the grains produced by cutting rather than grinding grain. Like steel cut oatmeal.
- GrymRpr
  
  FYI
  grody:Valspeak “The term “Valley Girl” and the Valley manner of speech was given a wider circulation with the release of a hit 1982 single by Frank Zappa entitled “Valley Girl”, on which Moon Zappa, Frank’s fourteen-year-old daughter, delivered a monologue in “Valley speak” behind the music. This song, Frank Zappa’s only Top 40 hit in the United States, popularized phrases such as “grody to the max”. Some of the terms used by Moon were not actually Valley phrases, but were Surfing|surfer terms instead (such as “tubular” and “gnarly”). But due to the song’s popularity, some of the surfer phrases actually entered the speech of real Valley teens after this point. The Los Angeles surfing subculture, on the other hand, did not generally begin using the Valley terms, and in fact often despise users of the terms.”
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valleyspeak
  - GlenBlank
    
    “Grody” was teen slang long before Valley Girl, and in places far outside the San Fernando Valley. Heard it a lot in high school in the ’70s in Phoenix, AZ.
    
    In fact, an awful lot of “ValSpeak” could be heard all over the LA area (and probably a lot of other places, too) well before ‘Valley Girl.’
    
    And some of it, I never heard at all. Moon exaggerated for comic effect – f’rex, I never heard any teen say “gag me with a spoon” until after “Valley Girl” – and then only sarcastically or ironically – and I lived half a mile from ‘The Galleria’ from before it opened until after it was closed and rebuilt.
    
    FWIW, almost none of it is in use today (though the surfers still sound much the same).
    
    The Valley is largely unknown outside the Valley itself, except for pop-culture stereotypes and clichés – most of which were past their shelf date twenty years ago.
    
    But that’s okay – it keeps housing prices down, so even mid-level workers can afford nice places five minutes from the studios. :-)
    - GlenBlank
      
      grody adj. [prob. alt. of GROTTY or GROTESQUE] Stu. offensive, dirty or disgusting.
      
      [Citations go back to 1965.]
      
      –Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Vol. 1., 1994
      
      (Also in OED.)
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Yeah, we were using grody in New England in the mid-60s.
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
- http://twitter.com/MartianEmpress Rezeya Montecore
  
  Away, vile prescriptivist! :)
- C W
  
  “Do you mean Grotty?”
  
  No, because that’s an entirely different word.
Bill Beaty

DRY ICE? Nah, stuff sinks to the bottom. It would just stir the mixture.

Maybe sprinkle a bunch of tiny dry-ice flakes or crumbs. Those will generate the surrounding gas bubble fast enough that the dense flakes cannot sink.

Hey, isn’t there a really tiny noisemaker throwie that plays UFO sounds, or music from Forbidden Planet? If not, THERE SHOULD BE.
- Guest
  
  dry ice zest
UrbanUndead

Looks neat! But yeah, I bet that thing *tastes* revolting…
Scott Croom

A bar I used to hang out at made this exact drink without the blue curaco, they called it the Texas Abortion. I like Alien Brain Hemorage much better.
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  I’ve only ever seen it referred to as a ‘Hemorage’ in the UK, ‘Texas Abortion’ is nasty!
  - Dan Pannell
    
    I’ve also done it without the Blue Curacau and it was just called a brain hemorrhage
http://devojane.blogspot.com devophill

Sounds better than the variation made with three colors of Aftershock schnapps.
- http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/ tristan eldritch
  
  Since red Aftershock by itself is the veritable stamped passport to Hell, I can’t imagine what a drink made out its three variations would be like.
Senor Schaffer

I think it’s purdy. :
Ipo

Sugary, sticky, overly sweet, syrupy concoction.
You wouldn’t order or make it for the pleasure of drinking it, but to cause laughter and amazement in a group.
- http://twitter.com/Bodminzer Kieran Manners
  
  Haha yeah, laughter and amazement in social situations is horrible!
  - Ipo
    
    No, it’s great. And a good reason to order weird shit like that.
    (No sarcasm)
    I wasn’t trying to imply what you understood.
    
    I much rather make a conversation piece like that than a bourbon on rocks.
    Just saying it doesn’t drink well.
    
    Btw, it doesn’t really curdle, mostly looks lumpy.
- http://twitter.com/MartianEmpress Rezeya Montecore
  
  I think we were already on board with your opinion of this drink. All of us. Everywhere. ;p
  
  Besides, it’s got CREAM AND CITRUS. Of bloody course it’s not going to be drinkable!
  - Brett Myers
    
    You mean like an orange creamsicle?
    - jeligula
      
      There is neither orange nor cream in an orange creamsicle.
      - Bill Beaty
        
        You want lemon AND cream in your tea Mr. Feyman?!
        
        You must be joking.
  - e smith
    
    just a dash or orange juice in a bowl of milk and cheerios is actual pretty good
    - D. Keith Higgs
      
      You can accomplish the same flavor without the curdling with a bit of orange zest.
lsamsa

Well, I would think that the taste of such a mixture might be worse than how disgusting it looks. Well, maybe.
I’m guessing that most people who would try such a nasty concoction have already imbibed enough alcohol to remove those boundaries.
caipirina

yeah, LUNCH
Westfakia

I’m thinking it should include a shot of insulin as a chaser.
- Guest
  
  alien pancreas hemmorage
http://www.jimdraws.com Thorzdad

We used to make these (except for the blue curacao) in shot glasses. Called the Monkey Brains.
- Brian Doom
  
  I like that name… usually this would just be the “Brain Hemorrhage with Blue Curoacao shooter.” You can order a ”Brain Hemorrhage” almost anywhere…
Sapa

Eew ohh Baileys mmmm
Paul Renault

In the late eighties, the rage was a drink called a Test Tube Baby:

Layer 1/2 oz of Amaretto on top of 1/2 oz of white tequila in a shot glass.

Using a straw, drop a few drops of cream on top of the layers. Watch the cream filament down and through the layers.

No, I haven’t been able to find good photos of this drink on the ‘Net. In any case, the cream isn’t for the flavour, it’s for the visuals.
- GrymRpr
  
  Is this not it?
  http://www.idrink.com/v.html?id=3241
  http://www.idrink.com/drinkpics/3241.jpg
  - Paul Renault
    
    Way too much cream. It should be longish filaments with a small dollop of cream, closer to, say, a jellyfish floating around your drink.
    
    Suppose you’re mixing sperm with a egg in a test tube. Do you really need that 10 CC of spooge from the photo to do the job, or just a quarter CC?
    - retchdog
      
      there’s a time and a place for verisimilitude… not sure this is it.
Rich Keller

It looks like a background from a Frazetta painting.
millie fink

Ugh. Come now Cory, must you, really? On a Sunday morning?

Urp.
- http://twitter.com/MartianEmpress Rezeya Montecore
  
  Yeah, that’s it, I am definitely sneezing on Cory next time I see him at a con. ;)
madgohan

Be warned: curdling drinks continue to curdle in you stomach. Drinking any more than one curdling novelty shot will likely result in an unpleasant “outcome.”
- Paul Renault
  
  Uh, that cold, delicious glass of milk you downed this morning.
  
  What do you think it’s doing in your stomach, warmed up and mixed with hydrochloric acid?
- http://twitter.com/MartianEmpress Rezeya Montecore
  
  Oh, good, that means I can assemble poutine internally, without an oven or cheese, now.
- C W
  
  Be warned, things that you eat all mix up together in your stomach!
http://www.bauartcreative.com/ Bauart

You lost me at “Peach Schnapps”
- D. Keith Higgs
  
  So substitute white rum or silver tequila depending on your preference.
snagglepuss

I’ve done a “Jack Kevorkian” and a “New Jersey Turnpike”. This scares me not.
- ryuthrowsstuff
  
  Why would you ever do a turnpike knowing what it is? I’m assuming your definition of the NJ turnpike is the same as mine. The bartender drains his bar mats into a shaker chills the slop and hands it off to an unsuspecting victim.
http://openid.aliz.es/Anonymous Anonymous

We need bartenders to learn how to use Durian, then we will get a whole new class of alien drinks :)
- Robert Cruickshank
  
  I’ve got some durian in my freezer and some natto in my fridge. I’ll bet I could make something out of that.
  - http://twitter.com/MartianEmpress Rezeya Montecore
    
    And I’ll bet it would interest rogue states seeking a biowar program. :D
    - Guest
      
      the very thought made me shiver and want to make sure I was wearing clean socks.
  - http://redesigned.com redesigned
    
    Natto rocks, i love making my own, a touch of mustard and i can eat a whole bowl of the stuff.
    
    And durian isn’t so bad if you like scrambled eggs that taste like custard and smell like butt. ;-P
- http://twitter.com/MartianEmpress Rezeya Montecore
  
  Can we get this guy banned for saying “durian?” *grin*
  - chgoliz
    
    Saying “durian” isn’t the problem….thinking that frozen durian is somehow acceptable, on the other hand, IS.
    - Robert Cruickshank
      
      The categories of “acceptable things” and “things which i have in my freezer” do not overlap 100%.
      - Guest
        
        I may put this very venn diagram on my freezer door
      - chgoliz
        
        +1, Sir.
  - D. Keith Higgs
    
    Put two of those together and you can hear them sing …
    
    “Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand…
- Rich Keller
  
  The grocery store I go to has artificially flavored durian cookies, AKA “Crunchy Gas-leak Biscuits.”
http://goodsharer.com/ Aloisius

This is a pretty classic Halloween drink though the blue aliening is a nice touch. Personally, I can’t get past the curdling of the Bailey’s. There’s also the squashed frog:

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3608/3647766677_a47b1ff33b_z.jpg
irksome

“This is your brain; this is your brain on booze.”

Alcohol is such a low drug.
- Guest
  
  It’s nine atoms. How high can you get on nine atoms?
ab167

My novelty-drink-loving college roommates made these or some variation on Halloween. It looks worse in real life. And those flavors together… ugh.
RuthlessRuben

I have a friend whose grandmother is from Hungary. She makes her own booze out of plums in an old rusty bathtub on her farm in the boonies, and sells it for roughly 0.20€ a liter in old juice bottles. The stuff burns bright lilac when you set it on fire, and a cocktail of 1% that and 99% Coca Cola tastes like burning nail polish.

And I would rather live on that stuff for a week than drink this…thing, purely by the look of it. It might not taste so bad, but as Samuel Jackson once said: “Sewer rat might taste like pumpkin pie, but I’d never know, cause I wouldn’t eat the filthy”-you know what. And I was never one to question Mr. Jackson.
- Marktech
  
  I have a friend whose grandmother is from Hungary. She makes her own booze out of plums in an old rusty bathtub on her farm in the boonies
  
  I’ve drunk home-made nail polish remover in rural North Carolina. Last time I visited my relations there, I stayed to watch the Super Bowl: I don’t remember anything of it after the first twenty minutes, and my mouth was numb for most of the next morning (though to be fair, that might have been the coating on the fried chicken). I felt like I was in a David Sedaris monologue.
  
  I’d be tempted to try this, though maybe not as the first drink of the evening. Would anybody face one of these sober?
- ryuthrowsstuff
  
  Palinka? I actually sort of love that stuff. A friend’s father makes it, but he apparently has a reputation for making it particularly well.
- Beanolini
  
  A friend of mine picked up two Slovenian (I think) hitch-hikers who had a supply of home-made plum brandy in recycled pop bottles. It was actually very pleasant, and far preferable to the concoction above.
nixiebunny

Time for that unicorn chaser already.
nem0fazer

Surely a close relative of the pan-galactic gargleblaster
RuthlessRuben

I’d rather get beaten around the brain with a gold bar covered in limes than try this.
pipenta

Gah! You know there are PLENTY of delicious drinks out there. This ain’t one of them.

It looks less like a brain and more like sinus infection. If I had to give it a name, I’d call it Cthulu’s Neti Pot.
http://www.facebook.com/martinmoo Martin Williams

I took this picture and the video, if you wouldn’t mind giving me credit for them I would be mighty grateful. Thanks, and cheers!
igpajo

I’ve seen a friend do something called a Cement Mixer. Forget what it was but they poured a couple pretty strong shots directly into his mouth as he had his head back, then they pour in half a shot or so of Baileys. Then they tell him to shake his head a little. At first he looked pleased with the taste but as the milk in the baileys curdled and hardened to lumps in his mouth, man the look of horror on his face was priceless. He was barely able to swallow it.
mrfixitrick

Ahhh, finally, the perfect refreshment for my main course, “Baked Devil’s Brain in Blood Sauce”…;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xr88zXX4vU
brainflakes

Just thought I’d mention that Firefox’s RSS reader has decided to shorten the title to “HOWTO mix a grody-looking Alien Brain Hemorrhage cock…” :)
TooGoodToCheck

It’s not every day you run across a drink that’s named after the hangover it gives you
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mel-Forbes/100003443753938 Mel Forbes

This dude on TipsyBartender has the best Alien Brain Hemorrhage ever! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4knoUXpi3eo&list=UUaDY8WjYWy36bnt0RVzSklw&index=1&feature=plcp