Right now Barsys is making me an Oaxaca Old Fashioned, but it could have been any of 2,000 other drinks, if only I had the ingredients. Among the only “Oaxaca” drinks, we potentially also have a “Flower”, a “Gold” and a “Tail”. Barsys promises nearly 50 versions of the Old Fashioned and more than 70 versions of the mule. (A third cocktail machine option, the Bev from Black + Decker, uses Bartesian pods with a different device design. Reps say it’s likely discontinued, but is still available on Amazon.)
It’s all very ridiculous, my friends assure me, when I send them videos of the Barsys aggressively spitting ingredients into a glass whose magnetic bottom spins the liquid inside in an icy, frothy swirl.
“I’m embarrassed watching this,” my editor at WIRED wrote.
“This is so stupid,” one friend repeated, before adding: “You should definitely bring it.”
Person Really of course needs a machine to make a decent cocktail. But you might want one anyway. I have a theory, the kind of big idea you sometimes hear in small bars. The promise of an automatic cocktail machine is not ease, nor necessity, nor even usefulness. It’s more like excitement. It’s fun. This is all that will make today different from yesterday. It’s that silly little thing that makes your neighbor happy to come over, gives people something to talk about at a Christmas party, or slightly entertains your partner after a Tuesday that kind of sucked the life out of them.
As the holiday party season arrives, here’s how to choose between two imperfect but pretty fun cocktail machines. Machines that reflect the life they lead.
Ideal for parties: the Barsys 360
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Photography: Matthieu Korfhage
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Photography: Matthieu Korfhage
CABLE
- The machine pours very accurate measurements by weight
- Phone app suggests one of 2,000 cocktails, based on ingredients
- Sounds cool, right?
FATIGUE
- Cleaning, rinsing and changing ingredients takes a lot of effort
- The app can be a bit buggy and difficult to navigate
- It’s a soft thing. Cleaning up again
The Barsys 360 is literally a flashy machine. Select your drink on the device’s phone app and the machine will light up like a disco or challenging bowling alley. The Barsys pours hard, aggressive streams, impressively accurate to within three-hundredths of an ounce, by my measurement.
As it pours your drink, the lights on the device will change from white to blue to green when your cocktail is ready. And if you also purchased the Barsys Mixing Glass ($45) with a magnetic spinner, the cup will now very quickly swirl your drink, ice and all, while spinning your tropical diamond daiquiri into a green-lit froth. Whoop! Bright, spinning drink!
We’re firmly in party stuff territory here. And lord, that’s stupid. And fun. And stupid. If you keep it on your kitchen counter, the appliance may cause you to make too many drinks just because you can and because you filled the reservoirs anyway. This can be dangerous on a work evening.
