Even with all these stories about AI-powered robots, you might think you’d still need a human being to fix you the perfect drink.
But not necessarily. A bar in York has become the first to install a machine that can mix the perfect cocktail – from a choice of 99.
Lounge 46 on Walmgate has the machine. It comes with a touch screen menu where staff can pick from the extensive drinks menu, featuring a everything from a Pornstar Martini to a Cucaracha, to a range of Mojitos.
One the cocktail is selected, the machine tells you which glass to use, or if you need a shaker, and any garnishes.
And it is connected to a huge range of spirits and mixers in order to create you a computer-controlled drink which is as precise as it is consistent.
Lounge 46 owner Joe Moore said: “We do 99 cocktails. And it wouldn’t matter if you or me or anybody else made it, it will taste the same.
“With this, everything’s measured out exactly.
“There’s no wastage. There’s no training for staff, other than how to deal with the machine.”
Thanks to the hi-tech equipment, Lounge 46 can offer two cocktails for £12 – encompassing any combination of drinks from the dozens on offer.
The machine then tells Joe “how many Sex On The Beaches we’ve sold, how many Cosmopolitans, and how much of the mixers are left so I know when to reorder”.
As the machine is on wheels, Joe can also use it if he wants to go out on the road with a mobile pop-up bar.
As well as being a bar at night, Lounge 46 is a café during the day, selling coffee and home-made cakes and pastries.
It also serves up pinsa-style pizzas – these are pizzas made with four or five different flours. “It’s much healthier and it’s lighter and more fluffy,” Joe said.
He has a great pedigree in York restaurants – “I’ve worked with two Michelin-starred chefs – I don’t think anyone else in York can say that!”
Joe opened the Blind Swine on Swinegate. “Originally it was going to be just a cocktail bar,” he said.
But then someone introduced him to an up-and-coming chef called Michael O’Hare. And he created a tasting menu which quickly became a sensation.
“Soon you couldn’t get a table on a Saturday night for six months, minimum.”
The plan was to move the Blind Swine to the basement of the Bonding Warehouse by the river. But that fell through because a software firm on the floors above was worried what impact the restaurant might have on their sensitive data storage.
In the end, Michael moved to Leeds to open The Man Behind The Curtain, where he was awarded his Michelin star.
That was when another chef at the Blind Swine, Josh Overington, moved up to run Joe’s sister restaurant Le Cochon Aveugle – in what has now become Lounge 46.
Josh eventually bought the restaurant off Joe and was there for eight years. He then moved on. And last year he was awarded his first Michelin star for Mýse, the restaurant he opened in the Ryedale village of Hovingham.
“To be fair, that Michael O’Hare was unmanageable,” Joe told YorkMix. “If I said, ‘do it red’, he’d do it blue.
“Josh was a lot nicer. If anyone deserved a Michelin star, it would be him.”
- Lounge 46 Café Bar is at 46 Walmgate, York