Acidic Mixture Dip

"Throws a helpful potion at nearby Monkeys that allow them to pop Lead Bloons and do extra damage to Ceramic and MOAB-Class Bloons. Wears off after several attacks."

- In-game description

 is the second upgrade of Path 1 for the Alchemist. It allows the Alchemist to throw separate potions every 10 seconds at non-passive towers (except other Alchemists, Etienne, Glue Gunners (without 2-0-0 path), Psi, and Paragons) that boost their popping power. These special potions sent at towers allow affected towers to pop Lead Bloons (but will not grant popping of Frozen Bloons) and deal +1 damage to Ceramic and MOAB-class bloons for the next 10 shots (or 13 with 2-2-0), and can be stacked up to have more AMD-buffed shots.

Unlike Berserker Brew, the chosen target is selected randomly, although it will choose the towers without Acidic Mixture Dip first before choosing any other towers. In addition, Acidic Mixture Dip can stack shot counts, up to 200, but brews cannot.

It costs $295 on Easy, $350 on Medium, $380 on Hard, and $420 Impoppable.

Summary
Acidic Mixture Dip is a cheap upgrade for granting temporary Lead popping and bolstering Ceramic and MOAB-class damage. Unlike other Alchemist buffs, Acidic Mixture Dip can be stacked an infinite number of times, making Acidic Mixture Dip spam on a single tower not a bad option to go for. Acidic Mixture Dip buffs work best on slow-attacking towers, most specifically a 0-2-5 Perma-Spike, as these towers essentially gain near full uptime with Acidic Mixture Dip.

Tips

 * Unlike Berserker Brew, this buff has no maximum per tower and does not expire by time. Thus, the number of buffed shots stored in a tower can be arbitrarily high.
 * The most notable candidates for placing down multiple Acidic Mixture Dip Alchemists are Poplusts, The Tack Zone, Bloon Exclusion Zone, Sub Commander with Armor Piercing Darts Submarines, Sauda, Sky Shredder, Sun Avatar, Elite Defender and Grandmaster Ninja. This is especially useful past Round 80, as the extra damage to MOABs and Ceramics can essentially increase the damage output by 50% or even 100% in case of the Sun Avatar.
 * As long as there are no other towers in range of the Acidic Mixture Dip Alchemist, its acid potions can sustain towers of attack speed of less than one attack per second.
 * This synergy is especially notable on Perma-Spike, which allows it to cheaply pops DDTs.
 * Caltrops that are on the track will not wear out its Acidic Mixture Dip if the original tower's Acidic Mixture Dip wears out. In fact, caltrops that were affected by Acidic Mixture Dip will retain its bonuses until consumed or destroyed.
 * In a similar way, Permaspike can have essentially permanent lead-popping and DDT-popping power just by having an Acidic Mixture Dip Alchemist in range. This is the strongest use of this tower.
 * Acidic Mixture Dip benefits from stalling bloons, because while other towers stall bloons then the Alchemists can stack Acidic Mixture Dip usage counts as high as possible.
 * Avoid leaving the game, as Acidic Mixture Dip buffs cannot be saved in game saves, except for the ones from Permanent Brew (which last indefinitely).
 * When it comes to crosspathing, 2-0-1 is generally better if it's about optimizing AMD, because the AMD can be spread more quickly among towers, so the rotation of giving the same tower more AMD can come sooner. 2-2-0 might be better if opting for higher upgrades along Path 2 or if going for Path 2 Alch buffs crosspathing.
 * Contrary to popular belief, brews and Acidic Mixture Dip buffs are separate buffs, not merged together into one single buffing source. The Acidic Mixture Dip buff is separate from that of Berserker Brew and Stronger Stimulant. Check the buffed tower for an Acidic Mixture Dip icon; if it has that icon, it can pop Leads and deal more damage to Ceramics and above.

Trivia

 * Acidic Mixture Dip upgrade portrait depicts acid dripping. The AMD does not drip with other upgrade portraits.
 * According to Ninja Kiwi's 5th November 2021 blog, Ninja Kiwi believes that the equivalent of Acidic Mixture Dip to the human world is salsa. Although most salsa is colored red, such as the Pico de Gallo variant, Salsa Verde is a green salsa that most closely resembles Alchemist's Acidic Mixture Dip.