The idea of doing a sequel to one of our favourite articles ever, ‘I tried to rip bongs through household ingredients’, has been floating around the writers’ room for years now like a cloud of questionable smoke. The original included bongs of raw eggs, sardines, and instant noodles, among others – a tough act to follow. Well, you only get one chance at a 100th birthday Drugs issue, so fuck you: we got someone to smoke their wee.
This is a tale of innovation, bravery, and teamwork. This is our Odyssey, in which our humble staff of stoners set out to defeat eight fearsome fluids, each more treacherous than the last, with the full knowledge we would have to look each other in the eye again after. Follow along with us, brave soldier, and may your gag reflex have might.
We also drank the bong water afterwards. Godspeed.
5pm: Chocolate Protein Up&Go
Half of Critic (which half? We’ll never tell) met up in a lounge one fateful arvo, jostling grocery bags in tow. With all of our questionable substances finally in a room together, we decided to start with the tamest one as possible – a strategic, though cowardly, move. Who doesn’t love an Up&Go? (The vegans, who sat this one out, became more vegan after watching). We theorised that the breakfast nutrients would fortify us for what was to come, and hopefully provide just enough nostalgia to to subdue the nerves. After all, Up&Go is billed as the perfect way to start your day; we hoped it was at least a decent way to start off the night.
Suck-o-meter: Heavy. We did not expect it to be this hard. The milk bubbled and frothed almost up to the mouthpiece – the smoke ended up getting trapped in the milk bubbles so that you had to blow down the bong to get anything out. It was way too thick, but you could still make it work if you swirled the Up&Go around while pulling. There was a cry of “I can feel the protein in my lungs!” It made your cone taste like melted chocolate ice cream – we obviously called bullshit on the first person who said this, but it was true. Unless you got it near the end, when the Up&Go had both “Essential Fibres!” and burnt weed fibres. 7/10.
Bongwater Tasting Notes: The best way to describe this is when you go overseas and get a special flavour of something. It was as if Up&Go had a Green version, or a really weird older sister that you rocked with. Minus points for milky-mouthfeel. 9/10.
6pm: King’s Cup
A Dunedin night is nothing without a few drinks, and we’d already done a funnel on entry. And then played drinking games. Then had chatty drinks. Anything to loosen the worries and the lungs. This all culminated in every breatha’s favourite mouthwash, and a must-have for this experiment: the King’s Cup. On the menu that night was a daring blend of beer, wine, Clean Collectives, Peach Hyouketsu, Majors, soju, and more (a mystery!). It smelt like facing Fresherdom again; our Dunedin lives flashed before our eyes – Maybe I should’ve done a Masters after all – as we considered Googling whether it’s okay to boil that shit. Our two attending BScis were already high though, so we decided it was fine.
Suck-o-meter: It didn’t really feel a whole lot different to ripping a usual cone. The only thing that put us off was the fear of death, as we’d heard inhaling heated alcohol was bad for you. It was also harder to light the cone and then smoke it through – maybe something about boiling temperatures and fumes? We swear we felt exponentially more fucked up after smoking this. (Note: this is because we essentially snorted straight ethanol). 8/10
Bongwater Tasting Notes: It tasted like an RTD. Which? Any. It was like a miscellaneous RTD you’d find in Leith Liquorland’s dumpster, or like licking the bottom of a glass recycling bin. It didn’t even taste cannabis-infused. Boo. 3/10.
7pm: KFC Popcorn Chicken Snackbox with Coke Zero (blended)
The second someone suggested KFC in the planning chat, we knew we had to make it happen. KFC has long been the morning solution to any bad decisions made the night prior, and sorting munchies after a sesh is nothing if not a struggle. And so, in an attempt at killing two birds with one stoner, we figured: what's better than just smoking your snack? In practice, the sight of the bong alone gave us heart palpitations and made us consider doing lines of sertraline just to cope with the choices that led to this. The blended paste looked more akin to Saint Clair after a rainstorm, complete with its own thick, gravy sediment layer. Truly remarkable striations.
Suck-o-meter: Maximum suckage. Thick, oily sludge. Asthmatics steer clear, ripping a cone through this was life-changing in a bad way. We had to get a stick blender and get this to a consistency where we could pour it into the bong. It was grim. If you’ve ever seen someone try one of those eating challenges where they mix it into a goop with water to get it down quick, it was like that but worse. 1/10.
Bongwater Tasting Notes: Like ashing your joint into your potatoes and gravy by mistake and then trying to wash it down with last night's flat coke. The chicken chunks pair nicely with converting to veganism. 5/10.
8pm: Chickpeas in spring water
A vegan’s wet dream. It made for an oddly pretty bong – the chickpeas mostly settled in the ice catcher, glistening. A bit like a lava lamp one forgot to plug in. After the hell that had been blending the KFC, we figured we’d let the chickpeas go au naturale. (Also, no one wanted to clean the chicken mush off the stick blender.) When we showed her pictures, our editor reckoned it looked like Orbeez. Much like that one mate that just needs to crash at yours for a little, the chickpeas ended up being really hard to get out of the bong. After our pitiful attempts at battling legumes in glass vessels, we were left with a kitchen covered in chickpeas and weed. Such a pain.
Suck-o-meter: Went pretty well until the smoke got trapped beneath the chickpeas that we couldn’t get down the neck of the bong. We had to part the chickpeas like a stoner Moses to let the smoke through and pull extra hard. We’d even cheated a bit and added more water than what was in the can. Not enough spring water in the can to fill a bong. Critic will be passing our feedback on to Pam’s. 7/10.
Bongwater Tasting Notes: Springwater tasted warm and like a wack miso soup. Couldn’t get chickpeas out without shit going everywhere, so like any good stoner, we said, “Fuck it, we'll do it later.” We didn't. 7/10.
9pm: Creamed Corn
Think back to the last time you had creamed corn. Probably never? Same. Not as creamed as you’d think. You can imagine our shock when we opened the can and realised, “Wait, this is really, really thick.” Like a parent making raro for sports day, the only solution was to severely water it down. Cue us putting a heap of water in and desperately stirring in an attempt to make something that didn't look like PVA glue. What we were left with was a David Seymour school lunch, complete with all the corn still sat at the bottom. Like a shit, minus the shit.
Suck-o-meter: Extremely, troublingly viscous. The force of suction needed inevitably led to a few kernels hitting the back of your throat. In some ways, it tasted even sweeter than the Up&Go bong. Quite a few people passed on this one due to how sheerly unappetising it looked. It made for a sweet, nutty corn-tasting cone. Lungs felt humid after. 2/10.
Bongwater Tasting Notes: It was like soup, but if soup was a towel and someone had swirled it around in the dirt outside and then put it back to where it came from. It felt distinctly heavy, and tasted like digestive issues. 4/10.
10pm: Strawberry Flavoured Lube
We almost chickened out of buying the strawberry stuff when we saw the price, but the curiosity on whether you’d taste it mid-cone was overwhelming. We didn’t think to check the ingredients til the day of, and by then most of us were at least four cones deep and could only really giggle about it. While you’d think this would leave us in the hospital trying to explain how this wasn't a weird sex thing, it turns out this bong was so good that we ended up asking, “Did we just make an invention?” Seriously – consider the Durex strawberry lube.
Suck-o-meter: It was a water-based lube diluted with more water so it was pretty easy. The hardest thing about this was how lubed up everything was. Take a moment to picture multiple professional journalists fighting over a slippery, slippery bong. This was worth it though – it tasted like a fucking Chupachup. Our respiratory systems were definitely shiny after ripping this, but it was yummier (and probably worse) than any strawberry vape, ever. Did the mahi, got the treats. 8/10
Bongwater Tasting Notes: DO NOT DRINK THIS! Bloody foul. Sickly, strawberry flavour that burnt our tongue and we had to scull water afterwards to help. 2/10.
11pm: Piss
This was fucked up. This was like, real fucked up. From the second people turned up with a Powerade of piss and a disposable bong (bottle, blu-tac), shit started to get real. In life, certain moments call on you to reflect on what you're doing, and in the moments before the cone, all our volunteer piss-smoker could say was, “God, I hope someone finds this entertaining.” Outside in the yard, we couldn’t help but watch on in a mix of awe and disgust.
Suck-o-meter: The piss bong pulled like a normal bong, which makes perfect sense if you think about it (piss is more evolved water). However, this was about the mental game. Seriously, if you ever get to the point in your life where you end up doing this, reevaluate. However, if you do it, just know that while it’ll smell awful at first, you won’t be able to notice it during and after ripping.
Bongwater Tasting Notes: Unlike Grylls, piss drinking was a step too far. Vomited after. 0/10.
12am: Listerine
With all the lovely brews we’d ingested over the night – and with some of us having folks at home to go back to in a somewhat respectable state – what better way to clear the previous air than with some mouthwash? After the success of the lube bong, we figured this would be basically like a mint Solo. Super tempting since by now, everyone was way too lazy to hit Night ‘n Day.
Suck-o-meter: Not difficult at all, and especially welcome after the last cone. Most pretty thing ever. Sparkly, a little bit of foam on top. Hitting this was comparable to hitting a harsh menthol vape, so you couldn’t do massive pulls. It was still pretty gangsta. 9/10
Bongwater Tasting Notes: Slightly ashy mouthwash. Handy to swish around at the end of a night, especially with everything we’d been through. Perfect AC’s set-up. 10/10.