Sophisticated Techie

Bartesian is the Nespresso of cocktails, but better

If you can afford the expensive luxury, why not have a machine mix cocktails for you?

by Corey Plante

What stands between most people and high-end cocktails at home?

Equipment, ingredients, and skill.

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Do you really want to buy rum, tequila, vodka, lemon juice, triple sec, and cola to make a Long Island Iced Tea by hand?

With the Bartesian cocktail maker, you don’t have to.

Bartesian

The award-winning device takes cup-based approach to home cocktail-making, akin to Keurig or Nespresso.

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Bartesian would thrive on Shark Tank — if it didn’t already smash through a Kickstarter campaign and pick up $20 million in Series A funding.

Accolades include:

  • Oprah's Favorite Things Holiday Gift List
  • 2020 CES Innovation Award
  • Good Housekeeping's 2020 Best Innovation Award
  • The Knot 2020 Registry Awards
  • Mila Kunis is on the board of advisors
  • My mom said, “Wow this thing is really neat!”

So how does it work?

Bartesian

You purchase your own spirits separately and fill up the various glass chambers (including a rear chamber for water).

Bartesian

The machine reads the barcode on each capsule, telling you what type of glass or shaker to use, how much ice to add, and how to garnish or prepare.

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While mixing, the Bartesian’s touchscreen tells fun dad jokes like,

“No need to tip your bartender!”

Bartesian

Capsules use real juices, bitters, extracts, and common preservatives.

The end result is a shockingly good drink — even to a cocktail snob like me.

Liquor.com

Early in the pandemic, I started a cocktail club with friends and did a 20-minute PowerPoint presentation over Zoom about the history of the Penicillin cocktail while we all drank one.

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My partner made fun of me for weeks...

A colleague recently asked me:

“So the cocktails must be really limited on that Bartesian thing, right?

Wrong.

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Bartesian has capsules for the Margarita, Old Fashioned, and Cosmopolitan. But they’ve got 38 drinks and counting that include gems like the Aviation, Paper Plane, and Sazerac.

Seasonal rotations include the summertime Mango Margarita and the purple Witch’s Heart for Halloween.

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No Penicillin though...

Bartesian

Another caveat: The Bartesian has slots for whiskey, tequila, and vodka. But you have to swap between rum and gin for the back-left spot.

This is disrespectful to both rum and gin.

Bartesian

At $350 from Amazon or Bartesian.com and between $2 and $2.50 per capsule — all without factoring in the cost of alcohol — the Bartesian is definitely an expensive luxury.

Bartesian

But can you really put a price on convenience?

Bartesian

What about the price of being a better host than all of your neighbors?

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Sophisticated Techie is a series featuring elevated tech and gaming products you won't be embarrassed to show to your Tinder date. We only recommend products we love and that we think you will, too.

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