Fresh ingredients are key to this drink. Avoid bottled lime juice and use the freshest mint you can find.

To muddle the first three ingredients combine them in a sturdy glass and mash them up with a muddler or a wooden spoon. The idea is to extract flavor from the mint by squeezing it. The sugar acts as an abrasive to help the process. A muddler is just a stick with a rounded end used to mash stuff up so don’t hesitate to improvise.

In a good sized glass with a heavy bottom muddle together:

• 1 rounded tablespoon granulated sugar
• 10 fresh mint leaves
• Juice of 1/4 lime

Add and stir to dissolve any remaining sugar:

• 2 oz light rum

Strain this mixture into a pint glass 1/2 full of ice (preferably crushed.) Fill the rest of the glass with:

• Club Soda

Optionally garnish with a mint leaf or the spent lime rind and enjoy the minty goodness! The recipe is easily multiplied and everything through the rum can be prepared ahead of time.

Ah, summer…

So, when you’ve got a small-block 400, a trailer, assorted parts and the ability to custom fabricate a 6-inch tall replica of a blender blade out of stainless steel, what do you do with your spare time?

Make the world’s fastest margarita machine.

Add: 6 bags of ice, and 18 bottles of ready-to-drink margarita mix. Turn ignition, and rev engine for 10 to 20 seconds. Open valve and enjoy.

As far as I can tell there’s only one problem with this margarita maker: “ready-to-drink Margarita mix” but I guess I can’t blame a person for not wanting to squeeze all those limes.

via Carla and Make

food, drink, drinks, margarita, make, project

Vat19 claims the device “Keep a beverage piping hot or cool as ice.” A bold claim for something which powers itself on the small amount of juice the USB bus can put out, but out of the box the device seemed well constructed, so I was optimistic.

First thoughts:

Unfortunately I noticed the first two flaws with the desktop appliance before I even plugged it in. First, there was no on/off switch anywhere on the unit which, while not tragic, would become a problem if your only free USB port is on the back of your system. Second, the switch to change from warming to cooling is on the back near where the cord exits. While neither of these flaws are tragic, both proved irritating.

In action:

I plugged the USB Beverage Warmer & Cooler into my free USB on my laptop and heard the fan on the unit spin up. Surprisingly the small fan made quite a bit of noise, considerably more than my Dell laptop, even more than most modern desktops.

Ignoring the noise I set the unit to warming mode and put my coffee on the unit. Now another problem… The heating/cooling element was too small for a normal sized coffee mug. A half hour later, with my mug straddling the heating element my coffee had cooled to its typical tepid.

For my next cup of the day I switched to a smaller mug which would fit on the heating plate and got somewhat better results. My coffee stayed warmer than usual, but still not warm enough to justify another device and the loss of desk space.

(Please ignore the small army of drinking birds in the background of the picture above. They are of no concern to you.)

Hoping for better results on the cooling side I unplugged the unit and let it cool to room temperature. After lunch I flipped the switch to cool and plugged it in. I was surprised at how quickly the plate cooled so I put my bar-style pint glass full of water on the plate. Half an hour later my water still seemed enjoyably cool, but was it cooler than without?

I decided to do a more scientific test of the cooling capabilities of the unit, so I got two cans of Coke out of my fridge and grabbed the trusty cooking thermometer. With one can on the cooler and the other on the desk (far enough away to not be heated by the exhaust from the cooler) I measured the temperature of each over a two hour interval.

With an ambient temp of 70 degrees F and a starting beverage temp of 39 here are my findings over the next two hours:

After 30 minutes, can on cooler = 50, can on desk = 50

After 1 hour, can on cooler = 57, can on desk = 57

After 1:30, can on cooler = 59, can on desk = 61

After 2:00, can on cooler = 60, can on desk = 63

After the full 2 hours I sipped from each Coke and could tell some difference, but again, not enough to justify another device on the desk.

Conclusions:

While I love the idea of a USB beverage warmer & cooler the current model from Vat19 falls short of both “piping hot” and “cool as ice”. While the price point of $24.95 is very reasonable the novelty quickly wore off and the many drawbacks doom this gadget to the junk drawer. Perhaps a future rendition will bring improved performance and flexibility, but for now there are better warmers to be had and the cooling effect is not enough to justify this unit.

gadget, review, usb, food, drink, cooler, warmer, office toy

Fill a rocks glass 3/4 full with

• Crushed Ice

Add:

• 1.5 oz Midori Liquor
• .5 oz Triple Sec
• .25 oz Dark Rum
• .25 oz Lemon Juice

Fill the rest of the glass with:

• Sour mix

Enjoy!

alcohol, drinks, drink, drinking, cocktail, party, mixed drink

The Hole – video powered by Metacafe

This is certainly not without its flaws; most notable that it dispenses cans which I’m sure will be well shaken after the toss and catch. Its no Bar Monkey, but you’ve gotta respect the effort.

via Make

drink, drinks, drinking, beer, alcohol

Yup, that’s right, soon for just $79 you will be able to pull out your iPod and check your blood alcohol content, then you can decide if it’s time to drive home to “Born to be Wild” or just mellow out and sober up to some Jim Morrison (ok, maybe someone else.)

Dubbed the iBreath, the device powers itself off the iPod battery, supports the full FM band (88.1 – 107.9) and claims accuracy within 0.01% blood alcohol content. I want one, don’t you?

Thanks to Will for sending this on to me.

drink, drinking, alcohol, ipod, apple, mp3, party, breathalyzer

While it’s certainly a cool toy I can’t see why the guys at Gizmodo are so impressed. For starters it’s slow, second it looks like it only does cans (let’s face it, if you like beer enough to have this robot you drink it out of bottles), but most disappointingly it looks quite messy!

So while I look forward to more commercially available automated drink makers/servers this robot just doesn’t stack up to the Bar Monkey.

beer, robot, drinks, drinking, alcohol

• Crushed ice

Add

• 1.5 ounce vodka
• 1.5 ounce Coffee Liquor

Another great classic rocks drink.

alcohol, cocktail, drink, drinking, irish cream, whiskey, whisky, beverage

• Crushed ice

Add

• 1.5 ounce vodka
• 1.5 ounce Baileys Irish Cream

Good vodka is important to this drink. Other than that you really can’t screw it up.

beverage, cocktail, drink, drinking, irish cream, whiskey, whisky, alcohol

drinks, alcohol, wine, sangria