Diet Coke And Mentos
Published August 17, 2026
Diet Coke and Mentos is the trick of dropping mint candies into a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke to set off a foam eruption that shoots soda several feet into the air. The bit went viral in June 2006 after Maine duo EepyBird posted a choreographed fountain video, turning a science-class demo into an early-YouTube signature.
Overview
Diet Coke And Mentos, the trick of dropping mint candies into a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke to set off a fast foam eruption that shoots soda several feet into the air1. The reaction runs on nucleation as carbon dioxide in the soda clings to tiny bumps on the candy's shell, forming bubbles fast enough to push liquid out of the bottle. Diet Coke reacts more strongly than regular Coke, an effect chemists credit to aspartame lowering the drink's surface tension.
The trick took hold online in the mid-2000s after a choreographed fountain video pushed it beyond the classroom demos that teachers like Steve Spangler had been running for years2. It became a middle-school experiment, a nightly-news filler segment, and a reference point for early viral video1.