How to Make the Perfect Molotov Cocktail

For social gatherings or inequality-fueled revolution, here are the dos — and don’ts — of this HOT drink.

Sam Westreich, PhD
7 min readDec 6, 2021

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It’s okay to go generic; you don’t need to get the specific brand for best impact. Photo by Till Kraus on Unsplash

In 1939, as the Soviets rolled tanks into Finland, their propaganda minister loudly declared via radio broadcasts that nothing was wrong. “Those planes flying overhead,” he stated, “are not bombing missions; they are dropping humanitarian food deliveries.”

In honor of that foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, the Finns firebombed the tanks, calling their improvised weapons “Molotov cocktails,” to go with the food parcels being dropped.

Due to the ease of production and the availability of ingredients to civilians, Molotov cocktails have become a popular symbol of uprisings. However, despite how we often see them depicted on television or in movies, there are definitely some wrong ways to go about mixing up one of these nasty, very-flammable concoctions.

I am not, of course, advocating that anyone should use a Molotov cocktail for anything. They are, after all, illegal to possess or manufacture in the United States, and many other nations have laws against them.

If there’s no uprising going on, stick to a less dangerous drink, like a bee’s knees.

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Sam Westreich, PhD

PhD in genetics, bioinformatician, scientist at a Silicon Valley startup. Microbiome is the secret of biology that we’ve overlooked.