Drinking

It’s ironic that while many regions struggle with water shortages, there’s heaps of the stuff floating around in the air everywhere. A new MIT water harvester design can pull enough fresh water out of the air to meet the daily needs of several people.

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.

High Camp takes a break from spirits to offer adventurous wine lovers a slick way of bringing a bottle off the beaten path. The Parkside Flask 750 stores a full bottle's worth of wine between two magnetic tumblers for camping, picnics and tailgates.

For people such as Gary Lynn, cerebral palsy makes it nearly impossible to perform tasks like getting a sip of water without human assistance. He can now get those sips on his own, however, thanks to a student-designed device known as the RoboCup.

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.

The Draft Top is designed to take your beer can (and other drinks) to a new level. It cleanly and smoothly removes the lid from an aluminum vessel, allowing for better taste, less bloat, imaginative creations and, afterwards, some clever repurposing.

Plastic straws are the poster child of waste, but alternatives also have issues. A start-up called The Ice Guys is crowdfunding an intriguing solution that fights the plastic boogeyman and keeps your drinks cool at the same time – the Ice Straw.

Everybody has their favored ways of carrying and consuming water as they go about their day and The Modular Bottle from New York outfit Ebite is as versatile a solution as you could hope to find, with swappable caps and tea infusion inserts.

VSSL expands its line of modular utility gear with a very different style of multitool, a packable party called the Insulated Flask. Not only does the double-walled vacuum-insulated flask keep your beverage close at hand and at an ideal temperature, it carries an integrated Bluetooth speaker to crank up the tunes from an accompanying smart device.

It’s hard to beat a draft beer, but we usually have to make do with bottles and cans when away from the bar. Enter the Cooler Keg, a new design for a draft beer dispensing system built right into a cooler.

Water scarcity is a major problem around the world, but with the right equipment drinking water can be wrung out of thin air. Researchers have now demonstrated a low-cost gel film that can pull many liters of water per day out of even very dry air.