I’m not sure that I’m qaulified to answer this but if you get a good drip going in Mr Mercury couldn’t you duplicate the layer a few times then mask out different drops on each layer so you end up with an isolated drop on each layer then animate each layers position to suit your needs? Could put them through the wiggler to randomize them a bit as well.
Sorry, I am fairly new at AE. I hope this may spark some better way to do it.