The art of alcoholic drinks through a microscope…

If you have often wondered what exactly lies within the various concoctions that make our favourite alcoholic drinks, then here is your answer.

These incredible pictures show popular cocktails magnified up to 1,000 times under a high-tech laboratory microscope.

Produced by U.S. firm Bevshots, they reveal the incredible molecules and kaleidoscopic colours created by the different combinations.

Capturing the constituent parts of favourite drinks such as 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 Bevshots founder Lester Hutt.

‘Each image was created by using a pipette of each particular drink and squeezing a crop onto a slide.

‘Then the droplets are allowed to dry out and then once they have the slide is placed under the microscope and a picture taken.’

It usually takes around four weeks for the alcohol to dry out completely in an airtight container - although in some cases it could be three months.

‘Some drinks such as vodka do not have as many impurities in as say for example a pina colada cocktail,’ said Mr Hutt.

‘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 properly.

‘Cocktails can have fruit and soft drinks in which contain citric acids and complex sugars which dry out well and look great photographed.’

…

Fantastic pictures!