Empty bottles quickly with a whirlpool trick

If you ever need to empty a bottle of its liquid (Perhaps you’re cleaning the bottle or making a huge amount of sangria!) then there is a trick to do it quickly. The video below demonstrates how.

To understand the trick, let’s first look at why the simple way of simply turning the bottle up-side-down is so slow. As the water pours out of the bottle, the space left inside the bottle becomes larger. The air outside can’t come in to fill the space since the neck of the bottle is ‘clogged’ with the outpouring water. This leads to a pressure differential between the atmospheric pressure outside and the thinning pressure inside the bottle. Eventually, the pressure differential becomes so great that the atmosphere outside pushes the water back into the bottle, the air rushes in and the pressure is momentarily equalized. This is the ‘gulp’ that occurs. But this gulping takes time. Your precious time!

Now let’s look at the clever fast way. By creating a whirlpool inside the bottle, you’ve set up a corridor of air connecting the inside of the bottle with the outside air. The water flows out of the bottle at the same time as the air flows in. There is never any difference in pressure and therefore no time-wasting gulping. That in turn gives you more Sangria time!

Cheers!

About co-author Beatrice Murch

This article was co-created with Beatrice Murch. She is originally from California but now lives in Buenos Aires where she lives and works as a freelance photographer (Beatrice Murch Photography) and a photo editor (The Argentina Independent).

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  1. Loren says:

    Cheating!

    They should be counting the time spent spinning the water.

  2. Norbert Norris says:

    It took longer to create the movement than to empty the wirpooless bottle.

  3. Matthew says:

    Yeah but the lady started earlier by getting to swirl the bottle before both people took their hands away

  4. Mark says:

    Just tilt the bottle slowly enough to keep an air flow back into the bottle while water goes out. I’ve found that always works better than trying to exhale all the water at once and leaving NO way for air to go back in.

  5. Why the sudden interest in this old old post? Where did all this traffic come from? 😁

  6. Matthew says:

    Because it is an important topic!

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