Drinking

It won't console you as you drown your sorrows in alcohol, but MIT's Makr Shakr robotic bartender can make exactly the drink you're looking for before you've even arrived at the bar.

MIT's Senseable City Lab teamed up with Coca-Cola and Bacardi Rum to bring Makr Shakr to Google I/O, which starts Wednesday in San Francisco. The system allows barflies and frazzled developers alike to personalize their cocktail recipe of choice via a smartphone app, or to choose a libation created by another user, creating a crowdsourced drink menu.… Read more

Keep an eye on the sky the next time you're at a concert -- a cold beer might be coming your way. It's been announced that attendees of South Africa's OppiKoppi music festival will be able to order beer that comes delivered on an octocopter drone.

Called the OppiKoppi beer drone, the device is an 8-propeller helicopter that can be loaded with beer and flown over the festival, arriving at the GPS location of any person who orders a cold brew from a mobile app. Once the drone arrives at its location, it drops its cargo and a single beer attached to a parachute will make its way down to a designated campsite called District 9.

With beer intentionally flying in the air, there's some concern about a cold brew randomly hitting festival goers in the head. Darkwing Aerials, the South African company that's providing the beer drone for the festival, says it is taking safety precautions. … Read more

For many, the first kitchen appliance of the day is the coffeemaker. But that's not the only drink-dispensing machine in town these days. Sure, there are tea makers that are dedicated standalone devices as well as those that are integrated into standard coffee makers, but there is another beverage trying to muscle in on the kitchen countertop scene. Time to make room for soda (or, depending where you live, pop, tonic, or soft drinks, etc.).

The Sprizzi Drink Machine aims to define a new generation of everyday beverage dispensers. Currently a Kickstarter project, the device ups the ante by … Read more

The beer drinking experience is already fairly interactive. You open bottles, clink them against your friends' bottles, and dress them up in little cozies to keep them cold. Apparently, all that wasn't enough for Heineken, which unveiled a prototype of its new Heineken Ignite bottle last week at Milan Design Week.

The bottles incorporate LEDs, micro-sensors, and wireless networking. The technology can detect when the bottle is just sitting there, when a person is drinking, and when it's used for cheering. Various actions are set to trigger the light effects, or it can be remotely activated to flash in time with music.… Read more

When I pour a beer, I'm always aiming to minimize the mound of foam on top. Apparently, there are people who covet that foam, who can't get enough. Those are the same people who can't wait to buy the $40 Sonic Hour, a new gadget that ramps up the foam factor at the push of a button.

Sonic Hour appears to be the work of the same people who created the Professional Beer Foam Making Mug. They've just gone a little more high-tech this time. While the mug used a little hammer to physically excite the beer bubbles, Sonic Hour uses the power of ultrasonic oscillation.… Read more

Apparently, there are times when brewing an entire pot of coffee is not desired. Perhaps this occurs while running late or just trying to get out of the house. (Certainly there can be no other sane reason why just one cup will satisfy.) In any event, for those rare times when just a cup will do, one countertop coffeemaker is ready to provide. In less than 60 seconds, thankfully.

The Capresso a la Carte Cup-to-Carafe Coffee & Tea Maker ($179.95) not only understands that time is of the essence when waiting for coffee, but that a nice cup of … Read more

Spring has sprung. We can now officially start to look forward to the coming warm weather months. The cool breeze on a warm summer day is still a ways away, but the effect can be recreated now. How? With 7-minute milkshakes and smoothies, of course.

The Zoku Slush and Shake Maker ($19.95) comes in an assortment of bright, cheerful colors. Whether one chooses red, green, orange, or purple to brighten their day, the result is the same: chilled drinks in as little as 7 minutes. The gadget consists of an inner core that is kept in the freezer (for … Read more

There is a lot of good stuff that can be found in the freezer: ice cream, frozen pizza, ice. Beer, however, is not one of these items. Now, of course, there is nothing stopping anybody from placing a warm beer in the chiller to cool it down quickly and easily; nothing, that is, except for bad memories. Sooner or later, a bottle of beer put into the freezer gets forgotten about. The resulting beer explosion not only results in a ruined beer, but also in beer-coated ice cream, pizza, and ice. While beer flavored ice cream may not necessarily be … Read more

Bars can be crowded, noisy places that do little to release tension after a long work week. That's not to say these qualities are particularly undesirable; sometimes the frenetic, wild activity is exactly what is desired.

But not always. That's why we have beer fridges and kegorators for the home. In fact, the home bar has achieved such a level that we have motorized cocktail shakers and mixed drink makers that require no more than a spin of a dial.

However, as well stocked and outfitted as a home bar may be, there is one thing it most definitely does not usually come with: a steering wheel.… Read more