You Can Now Make Booze Out of Your Own Tears

For a lot of people, Christmas is a time of bitterness.

Bitter cold, bitter family, and bitter feelings towards all of the mindless consumerism and Straight No Chaser songs meant to celebrate Jesus' birthday.

If that's how you feel about this time of year, what better way to spread the holiday spirit than by getting your loved ones wasted on your own bitter tears?

In the coming weeks, culinary research and design studio Bompas & Parr will be offering a workshop in London which will allow participants to make signature holiday bitters made from their very own tears.

"We're going to get people in a room and we have various ways to make them shed a tear, and then we'll help them catch the tears," says Iska Lupton, a food writer working with the project. "We've got these menthol sticks that people use in the theatre. We've also got a corner of repose where people can go to and try to cry."

There is actually a name for tear collecting—lachrymatory—and, strange as it may seem, dates to Roman times. "There is a lot of history to bitters, and a lot of history to tears. It's obviously a great healing remedy. Tear bottles were really popular in Roman times. People used to collect tears at funerals in bottles and then put them into tombs as a symbol of respect.

"And then in Victorian times, when people were mourning their loved ones, they had these special stopper bottles which allowed the tears to evaporate, and when they disappeared, it was a symbol of mourning being over."

While on the surface, the project may seem like a gloomy one, tears aren't all about sadness for Lupton. "Tears can be very positive things. It's a weird dichotomy between happiness and sadness but somehow they merge in this bottle of bitters."

Despite the workshop's connection to the tear-collecting days of yore, it's not like people will be giving their aunts and uncles a 90 percent tear solution. "The tear aspect of the drink isn't the main element. We're still going to have alcohol in their and spices and herbs, so the tears are more like an emotional infusion into the drinks, it's more symbolic. The tears will be in there but it won't be salty water."

So you can still technically get drunk on your own tears. Some of Bompas & Parr's other fringe binge projects have included an airborne gin-and-tonic project called Alcoholic Architecture, as well as psychedelic Guinness tasting rooms.

"I actually just read about a photographer who put a tear bottle in his family home, and every time that his wife or children cried, he collected their tears," Lupton says. "This obviously made them stop crying immediately. So I think it's the perfect thing for Christmas, because if you're going to give anything for Christmas, you should probably give yourself—it's the ultimate gift."