There’s perhaps no greater shortcut to a bit of pseudo-scientific flare than a splash of liquid nitrogen, a long-time staple of experimental culinary drama thanks to celebrity chefs like Heston Blumenthal and Ferran Adrià. Decades after the rise of molecular gastronomy, it seems the gimmick still hasn’t fully evaporated.
Case in point, a Moscow man was hospitalized recently after taking a shot which contained un-evaporated liquid nitrogen at an office holiday party, per Baza, a Russian-language online publication.
The incident took place at a “culinary studio” called “Igra Stolov,” a culinary edutainment space in Moscow offering cooking classes, children’s events, and corporate retreats. According to Baza, a celebrity chef was using liquid nitrogen as part of a “cryo-show,” which included fancy cocktails and shots flash-chilled with the stuff.
The man who drank the chilling brew, described only as a 38-year-old named Sergei, apparently downed it immediately after the liquid nitrogen was poured, not allowing it time to safely evaporate. Instead, the cryogen made its way down his esophagus where it expanded rapidly, rupturing his stomach.
Sergei was reportedly hospitalized in an intensive care unit, and required surgery to save his innards from the damage. Per Baza, he’s now conscious, though his status following the surgery is unknown.
As poor Sergei discovered, liquid nitrogen is extremely dangerous to consume. With a boiling point of −196 °C, liquid nitrogen expands rapidly into a massive amount of gas when exposed to room temperatures. The substance has a liquid-to-gas expansion ratio of 696:1, meaning that one liter of liquid will vaporize into 696 liters of gas.
That’s on top of the risk of cryogenic burns, which has resulted in permanent scarring, finger amputations, and throat burns.
The first recorded case of liquid nitrogen ingestion came in 1997, when a physics student in Massachusetts swallowed the stuff during a lab demonstration. Later in 2012, an 18-year-old in England had to have her stomach removed after knocking back a shot of Jägermeister that had been treated with the cryogen.
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