The Smoking Shot: Nitro-Cocktails Can Kill
The next time someone offers you a “smoking” drink, which is a nitro cocktail of sorts i.e. a drink cooled with dry ice or liquid nitrogen, you should think long and hard before accepting it. Now as we all learned way back in school, liquid nitrogen is dangerous, toxic and all things bad.
It’s the thing dermatologists use to freeze off warts because it’s cold as hell and freezes off anything it comes in contact with. It is used to put out fires, remember extinguishers?
Trained chefs use it to make ice cream or even flash-freeze herbs, and bartenders use it to turn glasses super cold, which is why they emit that smoky vapor; liquid nitrogen turns to fog when it comes in contact with air. But the liquid nitrogen has to fully evaporate before the bartender can pour that drink for you in that cold, ghostly glass.
Make sure your bartender knows what he or she is doing, or just stick to cool glasses rather than nitro-cooled ones!