Grace Le

​ This week's drink combines the old-school combo of gin and tonic with the free-standing fun of agar to create neat little shots guaranteed to make a scene while tasting great. Here's what you need:

2/3 cup gin mixed with 1/3 cup limeade
1 cup straight tonic water
1 Tbsp. lime juice
2 heaping Tbsp. agar
3 Tbsp. sugar
Food coloring of your choice

First, combine the agar, sugar, and lime juice with 1 cup of straight tonic water in a medium saucepan and bring the contents to a boil while stirring rapidly.

After the mix has reached boiling point, take the pan off of the stove and let sit until almost room temperature.

When the mixture has cooled, add the gin and limeade mix into the concoction and stir well. You can pour the liquid into a shallow glass dish or little plastic/paper cups depending on how you want to present your shots. Refrigerate overnight and Voilà! You have yourself some blacklight sensitive, blackout-inducing party favors ripped and ready to go.

The resulting flavor is refreshing and can fall anywhere between tart and punchy depending on how much gin and juice you use. More sugar masks the slight bitterness of the tonic water and a higher limeade to gin ratio sacrifices potency for flavor. Practice makes perfect!

How does it glow? The Tonic water contains quinine, a compound very sensitive to fluorescent lights. This makes the Gel-Glow Shot light up a brilliant blue when exposed to a black light, regardless of the food coloring used to dye the agar. In addition to this cool fact, the replacement of Jell-O, which contains animal by-products, with agar, which derives from seaweed, makes the drink a-okay for herbivorous consumption.

Now who says vegans can't have fun?