Drinking

There is something magical about going out to eat. Walk into a restaurant, sit down, and pick something to eat from a list that is presented to you. Not long after, your order arrives -- professionally made -- and when finished, the dishes disappear. How all this is able to happen not only involves a well-choreographed dance, but also skill and talent. But it's not all about the main course.

Just as with life in general, it's the little things that matter when going out to eat. Little things like dessert, milkshakes, and sometimes pie. The Waring Milk Shake & Drink Mixer ($169.95) … Read more

The kitchen countertop is valuable real estate. With available counter space always at a premium, gadgets and appliances that are contenders for acreage require something to help them stand out from the crowd. Sometimes it's a matter of versatility and other times it's convenience that determines what gets to stay and what has to go. And sometimes it's just the tasty stuff that gets to stay; but that doesn't have to mean unhealthy.

No longer relegated to the hard-to-reach corner of the countertop (or worse yet, stored underneath it), the Hurom Premium Slow Juicer & Smoothie Maker ($429.95) … Read more

Wine requires a commitment, but it is not pricey bottles or expensive wine cellars that comprise the whole equation. Luckily, the other side of the equation is the good side: actually drinking the wine. However, that brings up another consideration: which bottle to open and drink? Or one could take the safe route and cover all the bases by opening more than one.

The Dacor Discovery DYWS4 WineStation allows for opened bottles of wine to be stored and preserved for up to 60 days. The home wine-serving station uses argon gas to stop oxygenation and allow opened wine bottles to … Read more

Coffee might not be essential to life (although the jury is still out on that one), but it does show up every day of the week. The ubiquitous brown beverage that supplies a caffeinated jolt to imbibers can be enjoyed seemingly in a million different ways. However, before the cream and the sugar quandary comes up, how to brew it must first be addressed.

The Hamilton Beach (Model 49983) Two-Way Deluxe Coffeemaker ($99.99; available in August) is actually even more versatile than the name would imply. While true that the coffeemaker is designed to brew into either a travel … Read more

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