If you are planning on shooting off fireworks this July 4, you can stick with boring old sparklers and firecrackers, sure, but how about cutting loose with "One Bad Mother?" a 16-shot, multi-blooming display of crackling flowers with a three-shot finale, each blasting as high as 200 feet in the air and breaking up to 150 feet wide?
If you want to stay closer to the ground, there's "Fiery Frogs" which shoots off a fountain of sparks. Or you can go with "Raging Rottweilers" which shoots off multi-colored stars followed by "awesome spinning silver tourbillions with a strobing red and green finale," according to the description.
These and other similarly named products can be found on the explosives-laden shelves at Phantom Fireworks at 1226 S. Atlantic Ave. in Daytona Beach and Big Nick's Boom Boom Sticks in Flagler Beach. Nick's is actually a roadside tent at 2751 Moody Boulevard, decked with giant letters that read, "big fireworks."
"The Boom Boom Stick is anything that goes 'boom boom,' which is just about every item we sell here," said Haley Ritter, sales clerk at Nick's.
Consider yourself forewarned, however. Some of these products are just a smidge below professional grade. And a mishandled firework can kill or maim you. The Consumer Product Safety Commission warns that in 2023, it received reports of eight deaths and an estimated 9,700 injuries involving fireworks.
And these products are not cheap. For example, "Biggen" is a fireworks assortment priced at $1,499. It boasts, among other things, a "Fire and Fury" finale-level firework with packaging that features a King Kong-style creature firing off a machine gun.
"We have anything in here from lots of mortars to some smaller cakes, larger cakes," Ritter said about the Biggen assortment. "We have a finale cake in here as well."
A "cake" is a cluster of tubes linked by a fuse that fires off a series of sequential aerial explosions. These tubes can be up to 3 inches in diameter and a single cake can sometimes launch more than 1,000 shots.
The variety of effects within individual cakes is often such that they defy descriptive titles and are instead given cryptic names such as "Bermuda Triangle," "Pyro Glyphics," "Cosmic Carnival," "Emerald City," and "Molotov Cocktail," to name a few.
An example of a small cake at Nick's is the "Trash Panda," which shoots flaming balls. Its packaging features a raccoon flashing peace signs, amid a mound of trash.
There's also the hyper-masculine, scary and darkly dramatic packaging ― one item at Big Nick's is called "Alpha Male" with a wolf on the front.
"These give off nine very large shots," Ritter said.
At Phantom Fireworks in Daytona Beach, patrons can nab a 16,000-strip firecracker package decked with three snarling wolves. The packaging touts its performance as "super loud" with "maximum power."
But the most powerful fireworks in the building are on another aisle. Those are nine-shot rounds loaded with the maximum amount of powder allowed for consumer sales, Phantom Fireworks Daytona Beach Manager Andrew Schroeder said. Those include "Da Bomb!"
"All of these fireworks right here, this is the closest that you can get to the professional-grade fireworks," he said.
As for products with fun names that also pack power, Schroeder and Assistant Manager Zamari Davis showed off a stack of Whacky Tobacky packages. This product shoots "nine huge hanging gold brocades with a red strobing core," according to Phantom Fireworks. It costs about $330 in Daytona Beach.
"It goes about 250 feet into the sky and the breaks are massive," Schroeder said.
One tip from both businesses is to come in after July 4 for good deals. Nick's is open through July 5.
Schroeder urged people to read the instructions before lighting off the fireworks.
"Be safe," Davis said.
Domestic tranquility is also a factor. Phantom's biggest assortment sells for $1,499, and includes "24 hard-hitting Quest 60-gram canister artillery shells."
The name? "Grounds for Divorce."
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