Concocting the perfect cocktail can take years of practice, but everything in life has a shortcut, and for amateur mixologists it’s called the Cocktail Spinner. Imagine smashing a Magic Bullet into a salad spinner at the speed of light. This is what the resulting supernova would leave behind.
     |
A night out at the local watering hole can be a pain sometimes, having to elbow your way through crowds and struggle to catch the bartender’s eye, all for a tasty beverage. If only we could leave all the hard work to a machine. Fortunately, Monsieur, the “robotic bartender” that we first met at TechCrunch Distrupt a few weeks ago, is back to deliver a Jetsonian experience to those who thirst for more than tech. It’s certainly not the first of its kind, but the delivery method employed here is of a subtler sort, downplaying the anthropomorphic angle and hiding away the mechanism inside a streamlined casing. The home-bound version is significantly more compact (and less expensive) than the enterprise edition seen above, and it should be making its way to consumers soon. Grab a glass and join us after the break to see what’s in store.%Gallery-slideshow90894%
Filed under: Household, Robots
Source: Monsieur
When you think about it, keeping a fridge full of drinks perpetually cold at a store is a tremendous waste of energy given the product may not be sold for days. But the only alternate solution is to somehow chill drinks at the time of purchase, which is exactly what a new refrigeration technology called V-Tex does—without the need for gallons of liquid nitrogen.
| |
Would you buy a robotic drink maker from these men? I sure would. These are the creators of Monsieur, a robotic bartender that will squirt out a great margarita or a nice Manhattan in about a minute using Android, a bunch of pumps, and some booze.
Created by Barry Givens and Eric Williams and launching at Disrupt SF 2013, Monsieur allows you to select a drink – it includes pre-designed recipes and you can download “packs” that add different types of drinks to the mix – and the machine does the rest. Nozzles squirt out very specific amounts of plonk and mixers and your drink is ready. Every drink is exactly the same and, barring a bit of shaking, they’re ready to drink.
“Bartending and drink service have not been innovated in centuries,” said Givens. “There have been a couple attempts to create machines that pour cocktails but they failed to make a product that is intelligent, fun and elegant.”
Givens and Williams met at Georgia Tech. Givens has a BS in Mechanical Engineering and Williams has a Master’s in CS. He worked for Panasonic and Siemens before he began in on Monsieur. Angel investor Paul Judge, cofounder of Pindrop and VP at Barracuda, handed the team a bit of funding after seeing an early prototype.
Monsieur was born when Givens ended up waiting for an hour for a cocktail. “In frustration I asked why there wasn’t a machine to just make my drink. After leaving dinner that night, I started reading more about bartending and soon enrolled in bartending school,” he said. Early prototypes worked but didn’t have enough pizazz.
The team has deployed beta units at restaurants and bars in Atlanta and they’re working on partnerships with drink brands and sports arenas. They see this as sort of a “bartender in a box” that staff can roll into a room and let users order drinks without having staff on hand. The system maintains a log of what was served and the venue can ring up a bill at the end of the night. You can even change the strength of the drink from “regular” to “boss.” I had a “boss” drink when I tested the machine and it was, without a doubt, pretty darn good.
In short, it beats a bottle of vodka in a bucket.
“Our drinks taste great, people love using Monsieur and it helps businesses be more profitable,” said Givens. Plus who doesn’t want a robotic drinks butler named Monsieur? The team could put the box in a pair of spats and give it a pencil-thin mustache and you’ve got a real winner.
If you’re the kind of person who enjoys having a nice, cool beverage, but hate the nonsense you have to go through with ice as not only do you have to remember to prepare them, but also their ability to water down your drink, then you may be interested in Pucs. Pucs are weighted stainless steel stones designed to cool down your beverages. (more…)
Pucs Beverage Stones Keeps Your Drinks Cold Without Watering Them Down original content from Ubergizmo. 
| |
Did you have a few too many cookouts this summer, and maybe pack on a few too many pounds? Here’s a refresher on some healthy booze to get you drunk while keeping you trim.
| |
It’s known by many names. White whiskey, new make, white lightning, unaged whiskey, "straight from the still." Some even call it moonshine. To us, it’s white dog, a unique spirit with a lot of diversity and character. It’s time we got to know it and talked about what you can do with it.
| |
Love wine? Love soda? Even though the Rouge Sucette contains elements of both, there’s no guarantee that you’ll love it though. It’s a Coca-Cola-flavored wine by Châteaux en Bordeaux’s Hausmann Famille, and it’s going to be relesaed next month.
Rouge Sucette, which translates to ‘Red Lollipop’, contains 75% wine, 25% sugar, water, and a whole lot of cola flavoring. Of course, you could probably just mix wine and Coke in your own home, but it’s not going to be the same, that much I can tell you.
What do you think? Fun concoction or weird booze?
[via Incredible Things]
You’re going to have some friends over for a cocktail housewarming party. No problem, you think to yourself, I’ll just pick up some glassware at Crate & Barrel. You get there, and panic sets in. It’s an absurd, transparent cornucopia of tumblers and flutes and who knows what else, in every conceivable shape and size. You weren’t prepared. Pay attention now, and you will be.
| |
We are officially in the dog days of summer. Here in New York it’s brutally hot, and the air has the consistency of bath water. You need something refreshing. The Greenhound is that something.
| |
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
