Alcohol

For some of us, it seems that drinks made in coffee shops or bars are somehow just "better" than those we make at home. If you're one of those folks, you might be interested in the home-use FrazyBot custom-beverage-making machine.

Anyone who's been to karaoke night at a bar knows just how dramatically altered our voices get after throwing back a few drinks. Scientists have now shown that analyzing these vocal changes is a surprisingly good way to see just how drunk we are.

Shaken or stirred? How about turbine-blasted at 150 rpm? The all-new Martini Mixer from Callum creates the classic cocktail by whirling up a precise combination of gin and vermouth in a matter of seconds.

The original Barsys cocktail machine looks like it belongs only in an actual bar. The new Barsys 360, however, is more a piece of high-tech home decor, immersing one's glass in a vertical amphitheater of mixology with the skills of an ace bartender.

Beer from a can just ain't the same as beer from a tap, and a lot of it's about the foam. The Japanese take their beer foam pretty seriously, it would seem, and a design team reckons it's worked out how to deliver the perfect pour using an extra tab.

A monastic brewery in East Germany says it's created the first powdered beer. Just add water, and it'll froth up, complete with a foamy head and full flavor. The result promises massive savings on transport, because it can be shipped at 10% of the weight.

Although we've seen several systems that use vehicle-integrated cameras to detect intoxicated drivers, a team of Japanese scientists claim that such technology isn't always reliable. Their alternative? A drunk-driver-detecting car seat.

The only remaining bottle of the world’s oldest cognac goes to auction next week, and will almost certainly set a new record. The 258-year-old Gautier cognac was distilled during the reign of Louis XV, almost three decades before the French Revolution.

Every now and then, an invention comes along that makes us wonder how we ever lived without it – but those are in the minority. New Atlas rounds up the weirdest and wackiest inventions that left us scratching our heads this year.

Keurig is best known for popularizing the coffee pod machine, but realizing it’s always five o’clock somewhere, the company is now taking the concept out on the town with the Drinkworks Home Bar, which cooks up cocktails (or beer and cider, for some reason) from the same kind of premixed pods.

​Imagine if it's a chilly day and you're heading out to a gathering, but the only beverages you have on hand are room-temperature. Well, that's where Blitzen would come in. It lets you chill bottled drinks on top of your car, while you drive.

Home craft beer brewing appliances have made an expensive hobby a whole lot more accessible and PicoBrew is taking aim at all corners of the market. Billed as a first-of-its-kind, PicoStill promises a safe and easy way to distill other kinds of alcohol in the home.