An investigation of the Blue Bottle Experiment, a well-known lecture demonstration reaction involving the dye-catalyzed air oxidation of a reducing sugar in alkaline solution, has delineated the sequence of reactions leading to the bleaching of the dye, the regeneration of color, and so forth. Enolization of the sugar is proposed as a key step in the sequence. The first-order rate constant for this step was found to be approximately 2.3 x 10[superscript -3] min[superscript -1] with respect to total sugar concentration under the conditions used (0.184 M glucose, pH 13.3, 25 degrees C). Measurements with an oxygen-sensing electrode on Blue-Bottle mixtures containing varying quantities of methylene blue indicated that in a usual demonstration the rate of O[subscript 2] consumption is approximately 60% of the enolization rate. Small samples of the organic oxidation product were isolated and found by chromatographic and NMR-spectroscopic examination to consist primarily of the 5-carbon sugar acid arabinonic acid. (Contains 6 figures and 1 scheme.)