One night the blanket covered batch under her bed started to explode. She didn't realize what it was and was wandering around the house with a loaded shotgun yelling at a presumed intruder.

Now back on the farm we used to make big batches of root beer using the Hires extract (my parents didn't drink alcoholic beverages). Soon after we got to California (I was middle school age) I made a batch and decided to try using brown sugar instead of white. Good stuff it was - I didn't realize 'till years later the unique flavor was caused by alcohol.

It was, however, rather high pressure. My brother opened a quart bottle without refrigerating it first. Two thirds of the contents splashed down from the ceiling.

My mother decided she couldn't trust the bottles not to blow so she put them out on the back porch. In the morning the sun hit them. I never found even a fragment of glass, but the porch was uniformly sticky - roof, floor and walls.