In Sikh religious traditions there are various practices of using amrit, that is, sweetened water that has been consecrated by recitations of compositions from the scripture Guru Granth. Usually the term refers to the blessed nectar-water given to neophytes during the initiation ceremony of Khalsa, when a person adopts a normative Sikh identity. However, in living practices it also implies a whole range of consecrated waters that are attributed transformative powers. This paper examines how different types of amrit are believed to produce various effects on people, depending upon textual and contextual factors during the process of transforming ordinary water to nectar, including the identity of the agent preparing amrit, ritual spaces and instruments, and dispositions among recipients. The transformative powers ascribed to particular waters are intimately connected with semantic properties of the recited scriptural hymns or what these hymns have come to represent in the broader Sikh tradition.