This is a great party trick that takes a bit of practice to get it right, but it really will amaze the others watching. Just use your strong hand, some water, and you will be able to blow out the bottom of the bottle in a clean circle, while the rest of the bottle remains intact.
Step 1
Fill a bottle with water up to about two inches from the top of the bottle. Do this over a sink.
Step 2
Hold the bottle with your top two fingers with your weak hand at the neck of the bottle. This will prevent the glass from cutting you in case the entire bottle shatters.
Step 3
Hit the opening of the bottle hard with your hand.
Step 4
Check the bottom of the bottle, which should have broken right off.
Tips
- Some beer bottles are harder to break than others. Easy bottles include Becks and Sam Adams. Harder, thicker bottles include Budweiser and Corona.
- Do not be scared while trying this trick. Know you will break the bottom clean off. If you go in soft with your hand it will not break and sting a bit.
- The bottom of the bottle breaks off due to "cavitation". The bottle briefly and suddenly moves downward when you strike the top. The water inside of it doesn't move as quickly, creating an extremely brief void (vacuum) at the bottom. The water does catch up with the glass, and comes crashing down into the bottom. If the force is great enough, the bottle can no longer support the water crashing down, and cracks or breaks at the bottom. Even if the crack is minor, the inertia and weight of the water will break the bottom out of the bottle.
- Use cold water only to avoid air bubbles. Beer or other beverages with tiny bubbles suspended within the liquid will not work. To create "cavitation", the liquid inside of the bottle should not contain bubbles, as it would fill the void of air too quickly with foam. If cold water is not available, use bottled water, or let tap water settle inside of the bottle for a few minutes.
- You do not need to hit the bottle hard, but you will need to hit it swiftly. Speed is more important than force for this to work well.
- Always leave some air at the top to allow "cavitation" to take place. Without this, you're relying upon brute strength to break a bottle, which simply doesn't work.
Warnings
- Fill the sink with some water to catch the glass chips or shards. Water in the sink will keep glass from bouncing back in your face.
- Do not wear any rings on the hand that you are using to hold the bottle!
- Be very careful when cleaning the sink afterwards; even the smallest chip of glass can cut you quite deeply.
- Running a disposal with glass in it may damage the blades or the mechanism. Cover the drain so shards can't go down.
- Never leave the sink uncleaned, because whoever uses it after you could be cut unexpectedly by a chip.
- Make sure you aren't drunk: drinking a lot of beer and then trying to show off to friends by breaking glass is not such a hot idea. It has landed some people in the hospital for stitches!
- Ignore all the other warnings involving doing this in a sink. Do it in a bucket with water in it instead.*
Things You'll Need
- A glass bottle
- Safety goggles
- Water to fill the bottle
