This Cocktail Maker Is Like a K-Cup Machine for Drinks, Here’s Our Honest Review

Today, I’ll be reviewing the Bartesian Professional Cocktail Maker—basically a Keurig K-Cup machine for cocktails. This classy countertop-sized robot blends mixer pods (sold separately) with spirits from refillable reservoirs to dispense drinks in a matter of seconds.

Important disclaimers before we get into all the tipsy fun: Bartesian gifted me the machine I used for this review, plus a few sets of cocktail pods and assorted accessories. That being said, I will be dedicating an entire section to whether this fun party trick is worth the retail price after the pros and cons. Also, Hera the Dog Vodka, a benefit corp that donates proceeds from every sale to animal rescues across the West Coast, supplied a bottle of their fantastic vodka for this piece.

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K-Cup for Cocktails!

Bartesian Professional Cocktail Maker

Amazon

Pros: My Bartesian (or Bart, as I came to call him) really impressed me. It’s fast. And it makes good drinks. To make a drink, you first choose your preferred strength on the screen located above the pod capsule holder; that same screen also lets you know what kind of glass to use depending on which pod you chose if you’re totally clueless like me. (I’ve been primarily drinking canned cocktails for years now. The effort involved in looking up a cocktail recipe, prepping the various ingredients, and dirtying a muddler really made the full authentic process unappealing.) Since setting up my Bartesian, I have been enjoying a myriad of new and familiar cocktails from Bartesian’s ever-expanding catalogue of mixer pods. The cocktails I was familiar with tasted exactly how I’d expect them to and the cocktails I’d never had before made a good impression—I can’t ask for anything more. Bartesian even produces a cocktail pod advent calendar with perfectly-named seasonal variants like the Clausmopolitan.

Cons: While I haven’t run into any cleaning issues myself, I have read multiple other reviews that expressed difficulty cleaning the tubes and drains. The official method involves emptying all four alcohol reservoirs, refilling them with water, and running the “Rinse” function, which runs water through the whole system and out the tap. The easiest way I can think to do that would be to buy four additional reservoir tanks to swap out with your spirits whenever it’s time to rinse. Bartesian could easily have modified the rinse function to only rinse one reservoir tank of water at a time in a touchscreen-guided process…but they didn’t. Hopefully, we’ll see that change in a future Bartesian model.

Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon

Rating:

8/10

Sporks

Is the Bartesian Professional Cocktail Maker worth the money?

This particular model runs about $500 (though you can find deals on Amazon, where it’s currently on sale for $400). That’s a big chunk of change. So, is it worth it?
In my eyes, it’s entirely dependent on how much entertaining you do. I hosted a little get-together recently to put Bart through his paces, which is where this machine really shines. Guests wanted to pick their own pods, make their own cocktails, and film the whole thing for Instagram. If you host multiple dinner parties and shindigs a year, this could be a great tech investment to dazzle your guests and save time. Hell, you may even save money in the (very) long run with no more extra cocktail garnishes and mixers going to waste. Pods run about $2.50 per drink, with discounts available for professional use or monthly subscribers—a little pricey, but you’re paying for convenience and flashiness. I don’t see this being a good spend for solo enthusiasts who don’t host; cocktail-loving couch potatoes may want to look into Bartesian’s two other lower-priced cocktail makers.