You can always pour cheap vodka on your favorite juice to give it a boozy edge, but there’s no way that can even be half as fun as watching the same juice turn into liquor right before your eyes. Don’t worry, it’s not as hard as you think. Not if you’ve got Spike Your Juice, a kit that lets you turn an innocent bottle of Welch into alcoholic goodness.
Using rapidly fermenting yeast, mixed with magical pixie dust and ancient Enochian spells, each packet of the hooch-making powder can work its wonders on an entire 64 oz bottle of juice. You can try it with any brand or flavor (especially if you’re feeling experimental), although the makers suggest grape, cranberry, pomegranate or any blend including them for best results. All juices you will subject to spiking need to have a minimum 20g per serving of sugar (no artificial sweeteners), and they can’t be pre-refrigerated or unfiltered.
The science behind Spike Your Juice is based on Federweisser, a seasonal European drink fermented from freshly-pressed grape juice. To use it, simply empty the entire packet into your juice of choice and discard the original cap. Actually, you can use the original cap if you want the bottle to burst, which should make for a fun YouTube moment. In its place, you seal the bottle with the included airlock and rubber stopper, store in room temperature and wait a couple of days.
You can begin sampling the drink after 24 hours. The alcohol percentage will vary, depending on sugar content, room temperature and length of fermentation, but it reportedly can go up to 14% on most of the recommended juices if you let it sit awhile.
Want to feed your alcoholic tendencies without triggering an intervention? This is how you do it. Sure, it will probably taste like crap, but nobody said cheap booze was all about the flavor. Spike Your Juice is available for $10.