The Facts and the Fiction

Over the past week, you may well have seen a couple of graphics purporting to explain the effect that drinking a can of Coke or Diet Coke has on your body. They’ve been picked up by arange of online news and media sites, and as a result circulated widely. Unfortunately, althoughsome of the ...

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Structure, Additives, and Impurities

You could be forgiven for thinking there’s not a great deal that’s interesting about the chemistry of vodka. After all, isn’t it essentially just a mix of two compounds, ethanol and water? Though this is pretty much the case, there’s more to vodka than you might expect. Here we take a look at ...

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The Chemistry of Tea

After looking at the chemistry of coffee in the previous post, it seemed only fair to also consider the chemistry of tea, just so all the tea drinkers out there don’t feel left out. Much like coffee, tea contains a hugely wide variety of chemical compounds, but some of the most important in terms ...

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After yesterday’s new year celebrations, you might well be nursing a sore head this morning after a few drinks too many. This is a chemical consequence of consuming alcoholic beverages, but it’s one that, surprisingly, we still don’t fully understand. There are, however, a number of chemical ...

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For the fifthin the ‘Alcohol Chemistry’ series, we turn to gin. As with other types of alcohol, there are a huge number of different chemical compounds present, but it’s possible to identify a range of significant chemical contributors to its aroma & flavour. Here, we take a look at those ...

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Science Hits the Bar

Here’s the second in the series of graphics I’ve produced for my Pint of Science event at La Raza Cambridge (UK) in a few weeks’ time. Today’s graphic looks at how chemistry can help to make caviar and spheres in cocktails, and the chemical agents used to do it.

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