Now, making a tip-top party cocktail has gotten the smart technology treatment. The MixStik device helps you becoming a better bartender from the get-go. The gadget, which connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth to access more than 100 recipes, guides the user through a series of LED lights for the appropriate amount of liquor and other ingredients to make your perfect beverage. “The aim of MixStik is to make it easier for people to spend good time together,” Raphael Terrier, the Paris-based entrepreneur behind the device, tells us. Here, she gives us more of the deets. Related: Get cocktails (and even a bartender!) on demand with Instapour Making a perfect cocktail is no easy feat. How does MixStik make it better? Related: Baby, it’s warm in here: Year-round rooftop bars What led you to develop the MixStik? How does the device work? Will this device ultimately replace bartenders? Where did you get all those cocktails recipes? Do you have a prevision to launch it on the market?
The important thing MixStik does is making it easier for people to spend good time together. What we observed when having friends over was that everyone loved cocktails but making them was a chore for most. Having a beer or a glass of wine is nice but cocktails are special. The beauty of cocktails is precisely the process of preparing them; someone took the time to make it for you. It’s like fast food versus home cooking. The human step in the process adds a lot of value.
My partner Charlotte and I have been cocktail enthusiasts for some time. Charlotte knew how to mix a few recipes and I didn’t, so she was always making them for us. One time she got fed up so I had to try and make them. The result was far from delicious and I found the process quite tedious. I thought we could find an easier to prepare cocktail, accessible to everyone. We first tried with B4RM4N, a connected shaker that we launched on Kickstarter back in November 2014. It was too complex and pricey so the campaign didn’t reach its funding goal. Today, with MixStik we’re back with a much simple and affordable solution. The campaign is already a success and we’ve reached our funding goal in only two days.
MixStik is a waterproof stick made of food grade silicone. It has 24 color LEDs and is connected to your smartphone via Bluetooth. You launch the app and pick a recipe. Each ingredient of the recipe is color-coded and the colors are sent to the stick. You then place the stick in a glass or a shaker and pour each ingredients up to the height of its respective color. It’s very easy, fun to use and even for people used to mix cocktails it’s just faster than ever!
I really don’t think MixStik is a threat to bartenders, at least not the good ones. Our product is addressing the home-bartending market, people mixing drinks at home. It’s a totally different experience than going out to a cocktail bar and tasting new recipes made by creative bar staff. With MixStik you can easily make really good recipes right at home. It’s two different worlds.
There are a lot of excellent books on the topic and also apps and websites. We’ve selected recipes and adapted them to display the right quantities on MixStik. A nice feature concerning recipes with MixStik is that users will have the opportunity in the app to add their own creations and share them or to customize existing recipes.
We plan to ship the rewards to our Kickstarter backers in March 2016. We will be taking pre-orders after the campaign is over on our website. Online distribution will begin shortly after all backers are served. The retail price is targeted at $59 and for now it’s only $39 on Kickstarter.
Be a great bartender with this smart stick, MixStik
MWN
