Ever removed the cap from a new bottle of ketchup and attempted to pour the thick tomato sauce contained inside onto an appropriate subject — scrambled eggs, Mom’s mac ‘n’ cheese, Aunt Helen’s Baked Alaska — and nothing came out until you whacked the bottle several times on the bottom or stuck a chopstick down its throat?

That’s the way I used to do it until I worked on a couple of TV commercials for Heinz back in the 80s. They’re currently rerunning the one with a jukebox playing Cole Porter’s slyly sexual You’re The Top (“for whatever’s on the bottom, you’re the top!”) in the style of Taco’s then-hit Puttin’ On The Ritz.

See for yourself:

To tie in with the promotion, there’s even a chance to win $25 grand by telling them in 100-words or less why you are the Heinz Ketchup Fan of the century. Turns out I’m ineligible to enter for my part in making the ketchup in question to appear to flow effortlessly. Here’s how we did it. 

1. Remove ketchup and label from bottle and wash with water. 

2. With a Dreml fitted with a carbide bit, drill a hole in the bottom of the bottle large enough for a pneumatic air fitting. If you used a regular drill, the glass would shatter. You’ll also need a spritzer bottle of water to keep the carbide bit wet.

3. Once the hole is cut, rinse out the bottle. Let dry and screw the air fitting into the hole, adding a bead of silicone to seal it. Attach one end of a rubber hose interrupted with an on/off valve to the bottle and the other to an air compressor.

4. Refill the bottle with ketchup and stick an expensive colour-corrected label onto it to replace the original one which looks terrible up close on camera.  

5. Fire up the air compressor and gently pulse the on/off valve. When the valve opens, air travels from the compressor and into the bottle. Because the ketchup has nowhere to go, it appears to pour from the bottle as if by magic. Warning: make sure the air pressure on the compressor is set fairly low, otherwise you’ve got a Ketchup Kannon on your hands. Might be just the thing for a Bruce MacDonald splatter flick!

Coming soon: my role in the Caramilk Conspiracy.