Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Aaron Yap on May 1, 2014 at 7:26am

Sparkling apple juice for champagne; it has the right colour and all the bubbles, and it's cheap!

Permalink Reply by Lauren Welle on May 1, 2014 at 10:14am

For almost any kind of alcohol (whiskey, bourbon, rum, scotch, brandy, etc.) I like using iced tea with a little bit of diet coke. It tastes pretty good, too!

As for fake coffee, my go-to is tea. I buy a huge pack of lipton tea bags, any flavor depending on what the actors need or are allowed to have (ex. non-caffinated). I boil a huge pot of water and add about 10-15 bags to that water. I put it all in a glass jar to let it brew after the water has boiled. If you don't need to worry about the 'coffee' being warm or steaming, you can just wait until it cools down and put it into plastic water jugs and refrigerate it as iced tea. What's great about this is that you can make it as dark or light as you want.

I'm not a tea drinker, but I recently found out that English breakfast tea is a very dark tea, so that might be even better for 'coffee'.

As for beer, I haven't had the chance to 'make' some for the stage, so I don't know whats good to use.

And for the easiest drink, champagne, my go-to is sparkling juice.

Permalink Reply by Ginny Butsch on May 1, 2014 at 1:29pm

Ditto on the sparking juice and tea!

White grape juice is perfect for white wine. Very similar color.

Purple grape juice can pass as red wine, although you may need to dilute it a little bit to get a more realistic shade.

Any play I've done that calls for coffee has used real coffee, the community theatre group I work with always has a pot backstage going anyway!

I can't recall a time we've ever taken measures to prevent stains, but I'd love to hear some!

Permalink Reply by Jay Duckworth on May 1, 2014 at 2:43pm

Hey

I use flat coke for coffee, ginger ale for Champagne. Some wine we are able to use zed zinger tea with a touch of blue food coloring. But tea and flat coke are our go to's. A lot of props folk are using caramel color mix that you can get at food supply stores.

If you put the ginger ale in the fridge at room temp and let it chill up you will get a better Pop.

Hope this helps out.

Permalink Reply by Pat Kight on May 5, 2014 at 10:34am

Coming out of the woodwork ... after a couple of decades of dealing with actors' beverage preferences, allergies, sticky messes caused by spilled sugary drinks, etc., I now use plain water with food coloring - specifically, paste colorings available in the cake decorating sections of most craft stores. They're economical (a tiny amount will color an entire bottle of fake wine or booze, come in a wide range of intense colors - including brown and wine red -dissolve well in water and are virtually flavorless. For bubbly, I use a tiny bit of yellow in sparkling water.

Yes, they'll stain, but no more so than tea, coffee or cola. For scenes where the spills are intentional (actor throws a drink in another's face, etc.), provide the costumer with samples so s/he can test stain removal techniques. Pretreatment with something like ScotchGard is one possibility.

Permalink Reply by Katherine Hunt on May 10, 2014 at 10:43am

Thanks for all the great responses!!!