I live with a bunch of science nerds. I mean that in the most affectionate way since I am one too. We love to know how things work and experiment to learn new things. You wouldn’t imagine that as the background for a food blog post, but today it is.
My kids have been learning about density and gravity in elements and somehow that was transferred to making a non-alcoholic layered drink for Halloween on Boulder Locavore (love to harness the academic pursuits of my kids to benefit my readers). They’d both learned about layering different densities of liquids (non drinkable) for cool affects so we set out to figure out how to make it Candy Corn layered for Halloween fun.
There are a plethora of instructional videos on You Tube for similar Fourth of July drinks. There are some common factors in all of them, namely 1) selecting your layering drinks by their sugar content, with the drink containing the highest amount of sugar on bottom and layering to lowest sugar amount on the top layer, 2) layering the ice with the drink layers which supposedly helps with the layers to stay intact (e.g. not filling the glass with ice to start).
What might seem simple on the surface became a bit of a Rubik’s Cube exercise, knowing the colors we needed for each layer, trying to find flavors that would also mix well together and hoping to have an end result that was not completely synthetic in flavor and added colors.
How to Layer this Drink
With great experimentation we struck a perfect end result however learned in the process it’s not only the sugar content that affects the layering but the drink’s density too.
In our case we used two juices and a Vitamin Water. The Vitamin Water had the most sugar but was the most watery, where the juices were unfiltered and dense so they sunk to the bottom (exactly in the right layer position).
The three drinks making up the layers in this sipper ranged from 27-32 grams of sugar though the two juices that formed the bottom two layers were very thick.
If you make this with three liquids that are all similar, say Vitamin Water and sports drinks, I do think the sugar density would solely dictate the layering.
We found crushed ice worked best to show off the layers. Cold liquids are denser so we refrigerated our drinks before layering.
This drink will surely add unexpected fun to any Halloween celebration. The three distinct layers in the sippers are magical (they appear more distinct in person then in these photographs).
The drinks work best if served immediately after making them so the layers stay separate. Also jostling them around can lead to the layers combining.
For Christmas try this 2 ingredient layered Christmas Punch recipe in red and green too!
More Halloween recipes you’ll love!
Witch hat halloween cookies
Candy Corn Layered Halloween Sipper
Ingredients
- {White} Pineapple Coconut Juice - bottom layer (I used L & A brand with no sweeteners or sugar)
- {Dark Orange} Orange Mango juice - middle layer (I used Santa Cruz Organic 100% juice)
- {Yellow} Vitamin Water Energy-Tropical Citrus –top layer
- Crushed ice (enough to fill all the glasses you will be using)
Instructions
- Using a clear glass, put enough crushed ice for the first drink layer. Pour the pineapple coconut juice to the top of the ice.
- Add more crushed ice to the glass for the second layer. Place the tip of a funnel spout in the middle of the top of the crushed ice. Very slowly pour in the orange mango juice in to the glass to form the second layer.
- Fill the remainder of the glass with crushed ice. Place the funnel spout tip in the middle of the top of the crushed ice and very slowly pour in the Vitamin Water to fill the glass. Serve immediately. Note: serve drinks as soon as they are created and do not jostle drinks or all the layers will mix together.
Notes
Nutrition
Lisa says
What a fun drink for Halloween.
Brian says
Well don’t these look awesome. And so festive!
Toni Dash says
Thanks Brian! They were pretty fun to make too!
Viviane Bauquet Farre - Food and Style says
A very fun Halloween treat, Toni. I’m sure your kids loved them!
Toni Dash says
We all had a pretty fun time researching and experimenting to end up with these Viviane! Loved the tropical flavor too. Thanks for popping by!
Caroline Taylor says
I love the sound of these Toni! Great colour and those straws are fantastic too.
Toni Dash says
Thank Caroline! Unfortunately the clear layering doesn’t show as distinctly in this light but it’s a really fun effect. It was a full family engagement on the research and procurement of drink combinations to make the layering. Very fun! Hope all is well with you!