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They look more like modern works of art than they look like science lab specimens. It's hard to believe, but these bright and colorful images are alcoholic beverages magnified a thousand times with a microscope.
The pictures were taken at the Department of Chemistry at Florida State University. The American firm Bevshots offers them as works of art for connoisseurs of the hidden beauty of cocktails. The images show crystallized carbohydrates that have been converted to sugar and glucose.
Each image is a drop of alcoholic beverage dried on a slide under a microscope. It may take up to three months to get one image.
The colors in the image are not chemicals. They are produced by polarizing the light that passes through each sample. They are very individual, so the color shades can be different.
Cocktails may contain fruit or soft drinks that contain citric acid and sugar. This is how they dry well and look beautiful in photos.
The incredible shapes and colors of “drunken art” are obtained due to the natural lighting of the slides. They are photographed with an old-fashioned 35mm camera.
Dr. James Hutchitson says that the differences in drink samples depend on the ingredients. The grapes and the different types of grains that are used for production combine color pigments that end up in the drink.
The kaleidoscope of colors and shapes of seemingly colorless drinks is also related to how crystals and biological cells interact with a light source.
Having started a business selling “alcoholic” art paintings in August 2009, Bevshots has already sold more than 20,000 of them. The company's founder, Lester Hutt, says: “It's nice to show people how beautiful their favorite drinks can look.”