I never thought it was all that difficult to make a cocktail. Most cocktail recipes call for three or four ingredients which are simply measured and then shaken or stirred together with ice.
Some drinks might call for some more exotic ingredients or require a blender but compared to the average dinner or cake recipe, making a cocktail at home is rather easy and if you screw up, we’ll it’s not like you’ll burn the house down.
So it’s a mystery to me why some manufacturers have come out with expensive, complicated machines to make cocktails at a push of a button. Basically, all these machines are doing is reconstituting freeze-dried juice with water and adding alcohol.
How could these taste better than a cocktail made with a fresh juice and mixed by hand? Besides, is there any time saved? Even the fanciest cocktail can be made in five minutes or less.
Let’s do a little cost comparison of these two methods of home bartending – machine vs. by hand.
So here we have the “bev” by BLACK+DECKER. Bev is machine that makes cocktails via pods. You hook up various bottles of booze and a bottle of water to the machine. Then select one of 40 available cocktail pods called “Bartesian cocktail capsules”. The machine can read the cocktail selection via the QR code and then you select how strong you want the drink – from mocktail (no alcohol) to strong.
Make mixologist-crafted cocktails from the comfort of your own home in three easy steps: 1) Insert cocktail capsule; 2) Select drink strength; 3) Press mix and enjoy!
Choose from a growing assortment of freshness-dated Bartesian cocktail capsules* containing real juices, extracts and bitters.
Bev literature
The machine itself is $300 and the pods sell in six-packs for $14.99.
So right away alarm bells should be going off. After the sunk cost of $300 for the gadget, you now have to pay $2.50 per drink just for the ingredients. Let’s investigate the costs of making an Old Fashioned at home.
According to Spoon University (https://spoonuniversity.com/lifestyle/this-is-how-much-youd-save-if-you-made-mixed-drinks-at-home) this is how much it would cost to make an Old Fashioned cocktail at home:
How much it cost to make this mixed drink at home:
- 2 oz. whisky/bourbon – $0.88
- 2 tsp. simple syrup – $0.01
- 2 dashes bitters – $0.10
- 1 tsp. water – $0.00
- 1 slice orange – $0.08
- 1 cherry – $0.05
Total: $1.12
So with the Bev it costs more than double the costs of making one yourself and that is even before adding the booze.
Costs of an Old Fashioned via the Bev:
- 2 oz. whisky/bourbon – $0.88
- Pod cost: $2.50
Total: $3.38
Plus another 13 cents if you want to add the garnishes.
Skip the expensive machine and just make one from scratch!
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 3 dashes Angostura bitters
- 1 teaspoon water
- 2 ounces bourbon (or rye whiskey, if preferred)
- Garnish: orange twist
- Add the sugar and bitters into a mixing glass, then add the water, and stir until the sugar is nearly dissolved.
- Fill the mixing glass with ice, add the bourbon, and stir until well-chilled.
- Strain into a rocks glass over one large ice cube.
- Express the oil of an orange twist over the glass, then drop into the glass to garnish.
Too hard? You can try premade syrups
If you are looking for an easy way to make cocktails, you could try one of these cocktail mixers. This one called Strongwater Old Fashioned Craft Cocktail Mixer is a handcrafted Old Fashioned Syrup with bitters, orange, cherry & organic Demerara Sugar. Simply mix it with bourbon or whiskey.
It makes 32 cocktails for each cocktail is only:
2 oz. whisky/bourbon – $0.88
1/4 ounce cocktail mixer – $.69
Total: $1.57