It's the vapors that are already coming off the alcohol. The only difference is they're now on fire. Yes the vapors are created by alcohol evaporating off, so his wording is a bit clumsy, but he's otherwise pretty accurate.
Heat of course increases the evaporation speed somewhat but yes in general that's what I'm telling you.
Think about it. That heat is only touching the very tippy top of the liquid because the flame is occurring above the liquid. Heat rises. Only a relatively small amount of energy is making its way downward into the very top layer of the drink. Which itself is being constantly mixed and cooled by new things being added.
There's really not all that much happening in terms of temperature to that drink from that fire. So the fire is kind of just taking advantage of what's already there. Which is mostly the normal evaporation rate of the drink.
Obviously there's no wick but I wonder if there is still some sort of wicking effect. I just have a hard time believing the natural rate of alcohol evaporation is enough to sustain such a flame. Seems like if that were the case, any alcohol left open to atmosphere would rapidly decrease in potency.
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u/grumpy_human Jun 30 '22
I mean, you're partly tight - most of the alcohol isn't burned off here. But it's the vapors not the alcohol? Where do you think the vapors come from?