It’s hard to replace a good, hand-mixed cocktail, but the same goes for coffee, and if it’s there’s one thing Keurig has taught us, it’s that people are willing to trade a bit of hand crafting for convenience. Similar to its ubiquitous coffee machines, the Keuring Drinkworks is a $299.99 smart kitchen appliance that mixes and dispenses cocktails from disposable pods. It aims at being much simpler and easier to use than the Bartesian, with pods that include both flavoring and alcohol, leaving every detail about strength and balance up to the machine itself. And it certainly makes crafting cocktails easy, though an old-fashioned from a pod just can’t match what you get when you combine your favorite whiskey, a muddled sugar cube, a splash of bitters, and an orange peel yourself.
It’s a Keurig
The Drinkworks looks like a typical Keurig device, visually indistinguishable from a coffee maker. It measures 12.9 by 13.6 by 13.6 inches (HWD), with a flat, square base and a rectangular body that extends up from the back half. The body is dark gray and black, with a chrome pillar on the right side of the front that flows into the overhanging pod container and nozzle. The left side of the front panel features a transparent water container you can remove to clean and fill, and a blue alphanumeric LED equipped with touch controls. It’s a stylish-looking appliance that should fit well in most kitchens and offices.
Setting up the Drinkworks is a simple multi-step process that the LED will partly walk you through, but the included manual is a big help. Open a door on the back of the machine to install the CO2 pack (two are included), fill the reservoir with water, put a 1-liter container under the nozzle, then run the first-time rinsing process, in which the machine will flush out any manufacturing residue and render it ready to make drinks.
While it’s plugged in, the Drinkworks is a little noisy as it keeps the water slightly chilled and the CO2 system primed. It manifests as a soft hum that pops up every few minutes. It’s easy to tune out and isn’t louder than a closed refrigerator, but you’ll notice it in a quiet room.
Choose Your Pods
Like the Bartesian (and Keurig coffee machines), the Drinkworks uses disposable pods to make drinks. Unlike the Bartesian, the pods themselves are filled with alcohol as well as flavoring, and the Drinkworks doesn’t require additional bottles of spirits to be installed. The Drinkworks simply adds water (chilled, and either flat or carbonated with the CO2 pack) to the alcoholic syrup to produce the desired cocktail.
Because the pods include alcohol, they’re more expensive than Bartesian cocktail pods, at $17.99 for pack of four (compared with $14.99 for a six-pack for Bartesian pods). They also need to be purchased from a retailer that sells spirits. Of course, you don’t need to add your own vodka, whiskey, tequila, rum, and/or gin to the machine, which would be an extra expense. Drinkworks offers over a dozen different cocktail pods, from martinis, to white Russians, to chocolate negronis.
The fact that the pods include alcohol makes stocking your Drinkworks much easier than the Bartesian, but there’s a trade-off in addition to the higher price per pod. Since the alcohol is already in the pod, you can’t dial in the intensity of the cocktail like you can with the Bartesian, which has four levels of alcohol from “mocktail” to “strong.” What you get in the pods here is exactly what you get in the drink.
Tasting Notes
Keurig sent me pods for margaritas, Moscow mules, and old-fashioneds. The Moscow mule combines prominent ginger and lime flavors with a distinctive vodka taste (it’s 8.5% alcohol by volume prepared). It’s a tasty, but quite sweet, cocktail that leans a little bit heavy on the lime and barely has the bite a good ginger beer can provide. It’s pleasant, but it tastes more like it’s made with ginger ale than a beverage like Barritt’s or Fever-Tree. On the plus side, it’s carbonated, which the Bartesian can’t do.
The old-fashioned has distinct citrus notes and is a little sweet, but not overwhelmingly so. The orange notes are a bit too strong, and the bourbon used in the pods doesn’t have much depth despite the drink’s comparatively high alcohol content (16.7% ABV prepared). I prefer the Bartesian’s old-fashioned pods, partly because the resulting cocktail isn’t quite as sweet or orangey, and partly because you can use a whiskey of your choice (and I prefer something sharper, like a rye, in my old-fashioneds).
Margaritas demand less subtlety than old-fashioneds, and this is a cocktail the Drinkworks makes quite well. The margarita pods produce a drink that’s packed with tart but sweet lime flavor, with enough tequila present (13.7% ABV prepared) to have a mellow kick and not simply taste like limeade.
Simple to Use, Simple Cocktails
The Keurig Drinkworks is a simpler and slightly less expensive robot bartender than the Bartesian, and its all-in-one pods are easier to use, but the drinks it makes aren’t as good. I haven’t seen any smart appliance prepare a mixed drink better than I can make myself, but the Bartesian’s ability to dial in the amount of alcohol you want, and the fact that you can load it with your choice of spirits, ultimately results in superior cocktails. But the Drinkworks can definitely find a beloved home in an alcohol-friendly office break room, where the convenience of an instant cocktail is as appealing as the convenience of instant, pod-based coffee.
