Cons:
-It can’t be a sounding board for all your existential woes.
-It doesn’t know when to cut you off.
-It isn’t someone whose number you can try (and most likely fail) to score on the way out.
-It’s a robot. And you've seen 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Pros:
-It doesn’t have any preferences when it comes to serving, say, very attractive women, before it serves you.
-It knows over 2,000 drinks by heart.
-It can be controlled via app.
-It’s a robot. And robots are cool.
Excuse us—we were just going over some pros and cons regarding Barsys. It’s an automated cocktail maker, by which me mean, it’s a bona fide frickin’ ROBOT BARTENDER, and it’s available to purchase online in the US for the first time on August 1st (it was previously only available in India, England, Italy and Switzerland).
This feels like a technological nut people who like to drink have been trying to crack for a long, long time. And, if the promotional materials for Barsys are any indication, it appears they’ve finally done it. Bravo. Cheers. Huzzah!
Without getting too into the weeds about how this machine works, because we’re not even going to pretend to try to understand how this machine really works, you basically download the app, and either ask it to make one of it’s pre-programmed libations, or use it to create one of your own. Once you’ve made your selection, the machine will go about doing it’s machine-y things to make your drink—dispensing liquids into the glass roving beneath the liquids, mixing stuff up at 300 RPM in its special vortex receptacle—and thirty seconds later, bam: you’re ready to get drunk off a cocktail a robot made.
Prior to this, of course, you’ll have to actually add the booze and the mixers. The machine can hold five bottles of alcohol, which you place upside down on top of the machine via specially designed plugs, as well as three one-liter bottles of mixers, which are inserted into the side. After that, you tell the app what you’ve added and the app will tell you which cocktails it's capable of making. Easy peasy.
Naturally, it helps if you have some bartending knowledge. And obviously, it doesn’t really make sense to use this to mix a single after-work martini or whatever. But if you’re one of those people who enjoy hosting family get-togethers or work parties or poker nights or what have you, and want to take those duties to the next level, or just really want to impress someone, like your boss, or your in-laws, or maybe even a certain special someone, it might be worth taking the ol’ robot bartender out of the cabinet, placing it on the countertop, loading it with booze and letting it rip.
“This is my robot bartender, Sheila,” you’ll say, as your guests’ jaws drop in unison.
Though feel free to give it a different name.
