Fried Beer!?

I was once at a party where a man was frying Snickers bars. This new innovation at once confused and delighted me, so I approached the man as he battered another bar with a thick, syrupy concoction. I pried with great interest:

"What other types of things can you fry?"

"Anything."

The man responded with terse confidence, a smug grin creeping across his face as he continued to busy himself with his craft. A mere moment later, empiricism got the best of me, and I returned to demand proof.

"What about Cotton Candy?"

Now the gauntlet was thrown down, and, predictably, he took up my wager with a cocky smirk.

I handed him a large ball of cotton candy I had procured on approach, anticipating his acquiescence to my friendly challenge. Despite my initial incredulity, I actually I did want to believe that, indeed, you can fry anything. It's the pipe dream of all Southern food-lovers. And his own confidence inspired hope in me.

However, within minutes, despite attempts at containment, the ball of cotton candy had mostly dissolved into his batter. The goopy mixture was subsequently transferred to the fryer, dripping with futility, reduced to almost nothing. The loose aggregate of brown and pink sunk into the burbling oil like a wet blanket, and the resulting victual resembled a piece of fried chicken skin flecked with pink sprinkles. It tasted like crispy sugar-butter, like batter, like shattered dreams. I considered the experiment a failure and went away somewhat disheartened at the revelation that there were indeed pragmatic limitations to what we can fry. Was this it? Had we fried all there was to fry? These questions burned with their pitiful finality, and the epistemic claustrophobia engendered thereby would haunt me to this today.

But, lo! What new culinary miracle hath science wrought? Well, friends, we've put a man on the moon, conquered disease, connected the globe, de-crusted peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and finally, we've fried beer.



That's right. Fried beer. It's injected into a pocket of pretzel-like dough, deep fried, and served up for your (adult) enjoyment. I'm confident that we've hit the ceiling in terms of ground-breaking discoveries. Science, you can retire.