Mentos and Coke Overflowing With Joy

This morning on the Grocery Manufacturer Association’s SmartBrief newsletter, there was this nugget of news:

Internet home videos turns into brand explosion for Mentos
Mentos has gained more than $10 million in free advertising from the onslaught of do-it-yourself videos on the Internet featuring gushing bottles of Mentos and Diet Coke, estimates a Mentos marketing executive. The company has approached the makers of one of the more elaborate Mentos and Diet Coke ruses for a possible marketing deal. 

The full article is posted at Wall Street Journal, which you need a subscription to access, so excuse the lack of full link or article. 

I had never heard of this whole Mentos and Diet Coke thing until this past May when a visit to the Oddfellow Theater in Buckfield, Maine revealed a video done by Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz with 200 litres of Diet Coke and 500 Mentos were sent cascading through the air in a breathtaking video, which can be seen here

It inspired some experiments of my own at home and generated some ponderables.  Well, mainly two of them:

First, who was the poor soul who was eating a Mentos then took a swig of Diet Coke and realized that it was an explosive combination, and is he still alive?

Secondly: if you mixed 151 proof rum with Diet Coke, and then dropped a Mentos in it, could you create a flame thrower?