Alchemy lab

The Alchemy Lab is the fifth most expensive building players can purchase in Cookie Clicker Classic. It produces 500 cookies every 5 seconds by transforming gold, and its first purchase also increases Grandma output by +4 cookies per 5 seconds. Its initial price is 50,000 cookies, and the cost rises by 10% with each additional purchase.

In appearance, the building is associated with the middle field in the Classic version, and its purchase can cause some grandmas to change into a golden grandma. This makes it one of the more distinctive buildings in the early-to-mid game, since it affects both cookie production and Grandma behavior at the same time.

A few gameplay details stand out:

• The Alchemy Lab is framed as an upgrade-like transformation of gold into cookies, rather than a conventional production building.
• Its theme parodies alchemy’s historical goal of turning base metals into gold, but here the process is reversed into cookie production.
• News ticker text suggests that the process may not be limited to gold, with silver also implied as a possible transmutation material, though no other upgrades or achievements reinforce this.
• Another ticker line implies that gold may have lost much of its value by the time the Alchemy Lab becomes available.
• The game also hints at a reversible relationship between gold and cookies.

Its sprite set includes the Alchemy Lab icon in the store, the building’s appearance, a background image, and a Transmuted Grandma image.