Bartesian works like a Keurig machine for cocktails

Making the perfect martini could get a lot easier with a Canadian invention that’s like a Keurig for cocktails. The Bartesian operates almost exactly like the popular coffee machine, using premixed flavour capsules to craft a variety of different alcoholic drinks. Users supply their own alcohol in reservoirs on each side of the machine, which can store four base liquors. To make a drink, they just pop one of six different cocktail capsules into the machine, adjust the flavour strength on a digital screen and press a button to start the process. Each capsule contains non-alcoholic ingredients, like juices, bitters and liqueurs. “We didn’t do anything fake — no high fructose corn syrup, nothing weird like that,” said co-founder Bryan Fedorak. Among the six flavours are many standards, like Cosmopolitan, Margarita and Sex on the Beach. Bartesian was dreamed up by two entrepreneurs from the Kitchener-Waterloo area of Ontario last year. Television personality Dee Brun, a frequent cocktail consultant on CBC talk show “Steven and Chris,” helped pick the flavours. Earlier this month, the creators launched the Bartesian on crowdfunding website Kickstarter in hopes of raising $100,000 to begin production. As of Friday morning, the campaign had generated about $67,000 of that goal with an end date set for July 16. Pre-sales for the Bartesian are priced at $299. Eventually, Fedorak wants to sell the machine online and through select retailers. “Our vision is to have hundreds of different flavours,” he said. Fedorak hopes the capsule selection will eventually grow to a size where they can be sold in themed packages, like Girls’ Night Out or a variety inspired by TV series “Mad Men.” Bartesian capsules are also recyclable, Fedorak said, which helps avoid a frequent complaint about the waste Keurig’s plastic K-Pods create.