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From past experience, a two liter pop bottle Leyden jar is enough to give a decent jolt.

One time in eighth grade science class, there was some opportunity for extra credit, and one of the things you could choose was to make a leyden jar from a pop (some of you call it soda) bottle. Mine, based on the suggested design, had a foil inner electrode (made by cutting off the narrow neck and then replacing it later).

So, the time comes to test it out in class, by getting on an insulated platform and holding it up to the Van de Graff generator (now there's a fun toy!), and our clueless teacher has me hold it not by either electrode, but by the insulating part, and charge it from the VdG generator. I'm already thinking, WTF, you have to ground the other side of the capacitor to actually charge it.

Well, anyway, somehow the clueless teacher determined that mine didn't work and I went back to my seat with my Leyden jar. At which point, I was holding the jar by the outer electrode, and I absentmindedly touched the inner electrode with my other hand, and before I even made contact with it, I got a pretty memorable shock. Seemed pretty effective to me.

FWIW, A water inner electrode is a lot easier to construct.

My physics teacher shocked me with one of these in my 5th year physics class (Thank you Mr Fenton!).

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