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I have a vampire. Said vampire would like a drink. But they're bored of their wine and their raw blood, and they'd like to try something more processed. You only die once, after all.

Now, blood doesn't have soda's consistency. It's non-Newtonian fluid — specifically, thixotropic, shear-thinning fluid. Ergo, pouring it is fine — it becomes more liquid when poured. The problem is that leaving it to sit for a while tends to see it clot and thicken. Production of blood serum involves removal of its clotting factors, which I imagine reduces some of that. The sources I can access indicate physical properties of red blood cells themselves are also partially responsible for the rheology of blood, but if you remove those some of the flavor goes with and the vampire doesn't appreciate that. So we've done the best we can in the "ensuring the drink won't become blood Jello" (oooh, there's an idea) department. Sterilizing it with radiation and chilling it post-canning will deal with any microorganisms trying to snack on it from the inside; only one blood-consuming parasite is allowed to have this drink, thank you very much.

However, the vampire would like their drink carbonated, like the sodas those silly living people enjoy. And therein lies the rub: is this possible? Normally one would think this straightforward: carbonation is the injection of carbon dioxide into a fluid to give it fizzy bubbles, so inject carbon dioxide into the blood, easy-said-done. But I have no idea how carbon dioxide would behave within serum as opposed to water. Moreover, I once had a home soda maker, and its manual specifically said not to use it with fluids other than water because they might gum up its internals.

So there's the question: can a vampire carbonate serum to produce a sort of blood soda, preferably without making some kind of awful, goopy mess or thin, flavorless sparkling water out of it?

Don't worry about it interacting with the flavoring or anything along those lines; let's just say it's not sweetener and leave it at that.

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    $\begingroup$ Nitrogen aeration would likely work better than CO2 $\endgroup$
    – Daniel B
    Commented Jan 31 at 9:13

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Kind of?

As L.Dutch's answer points out, no, it's not possible to add $\text{CO}_2$ to the blood safely without it turning goopy and awful and coagulated and whatnot. But you might not have to use carbon dioxide.

Nitro Pepsi was a soda aerated with $\text{N}_2$ rather than carbon dioxide, and has a little widget to infuse the nitrogen as you open it. It wasn't received exceptionally well because it was pretty flat (or is, since I'm pretty sure you can still get it), but it was also described as "super creamy and buttery". Maybe that's a good thing? Who knows?

Regardless, it isn't impossible to have something distinctly different from blood on the menu. And even if it doesn't taste great, it's definitely better than just drinking raw blood.

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    $\begingroup$ This suggests that nitrous oxide might make a good additive. It dissolves in blood just fine as long as it has lipids. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Rapplean
    Commented Feb 1 at 15:57
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Very likely not.

When carbonating a water based solution, the CO2 will react with water to form carbonic acid.

This will shift the pH of the solution to lower values. If this is OK and desired for water, it can be tricky with anything containing proteins, as change in pH can result in protein denaturation and coagulation. Think of what happens when you drip vinegar or lemon on raw egg or chicken.

I suspect that adding CO2 to serum would have some similar effect, as a consequence of the acidification on the proteins present in the serum.

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  • $\begingroup$ Since this isn't raw egg or chicken, but instead a liquid, would it be possible to mix in a flavorless base to keep the pH stable? I presume the ratio for such a thing, if possible, would have to be very precise. You're making me wonder if the carbon dioxide would get picked up by the red blood cells, too. $\endgroup$
    – KEY_ABRADE
    Commented Jan 31 at 9:10
  • $\begingroup$ @KEY_ABRADE isn’t raw egg a liquid? $\endgroup$
    – Joe W
    Commented Jan 31 at 19:42
  • $\begingroup$ @JoeW Eh, sort of. The fluid, yes, the yolk, not really. Or, at least, the yolk's not something you can mix vinegar into a solution with whereas the fluid as. $\endgroup$
    – KEY_ABRADE
    Commented Jan 31 at 20:04
  • $\begingroup$ @KEY_ABRADE you most certainly can mix vinegar into the yolk once you break the membrane surrounding it. That is how you make scrambled eggs and mix things into the o b $\endgroup$
    – Joe W
    Commented Jan 31 at 20:12
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CO2 as already mentioned is a poor choice due to acidity, however, since vampires are immortal and immune to poison (presumably) you can add just about any gas that does not react with blood but dissolves in water. (sadly, helium would not work,, regardless how funny it would make the vamp sound after drinking).

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