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Party with a little help from gadgets

Last Updated 03 November 2013, 17:15 IST

The stresses of hosting a party can pile up this time of year. Whether it’s for a holiday get-together or a tailgate extravaganza, drinks must be mixed and food must be cooked, preferably with a carefree attitude that puts your guests in awe of your party-throwing prowess.

But how do you make it a memorable occasion without hiring a caterer?

There are gadgets, from automated mixologists to flameless marshmallow roasters, that can make your event a lot more exciting than a gathering around a party tray from the local wholesale club.

Case in point: the Bartendro. Basically, the Bartendro is a robotic bartender. It pairs a Wi-Fi interface, a digital brain based on a kind of minicomputer called Raspberry Pi and a rack of pumps in a tabletop machine that will mix drinks from an array of user-supplied liquor and mixers. Plus, it has a special cycle to clean and sanitise the pumps so your vodka tube, for example, does not taste like the whiskey you had running through it last time you used the Bartendro.

It works this way: The host enters the names of the liquids on a screen and Bartendro populates its menu with mixed drink possibilities. Partygoers use any device connected to Wi-Fi to order from the drink menu. From there, they can adjust the drink size and strength before the pour.

Michael said he expected the devices to be available for sale in January through the website of his company, Party Robotics, of San Luis Obispo, Calif. The price will range from $2,500 (Rs 1,53,450)  for the largest model to around $250 (Rs 15,345) for the ShotBot, which has one dispenser.

Michael said he did not see his invention running human bartenders out of work any time soon. Bartendro will never juggle bottles, light drinks on fire or listen to tales of woe from the tipsy.

On the other hand, it will not judge if you order a frilly girl drink, nor will it smoke the ice cubes you put in your glass. But some chefs are doing just that with a gadget called the Smoking Gun.

This product, by PolyScience of Niles, Ill., looks a little like a blow dryer. Basically, it’s a pipe with a hose attached. Users pack wood chips, tea, straw or anything else that would impart flavour into a small bowl on the gun, light it and start the battery-operated motor, which keeps the draft going. The hose delivers the smoke into the user-supplied container.

The whole process takes a minute or less. The Smoking Gun has been on the market nearly a year, said Greg Kirrish, culinary marketing manager for PolyScience, which has gained a reputation for bringing science into the kitchen. In that time, users have let their imaginations run, adding the flavours from smoke to all sorts of foods, including chocolate ice cream, marshmallows and baked bananas.

The Smoking Gun comes with two half-ounce jars of hickory and apple wood sawdust and sells for a suggested price of $100 (Rs 6,138). Additional jars of sawdust are available through the company.

Manufacturers are also offering a few new tricks on the cooking side.
Williams-Sonoma and Sur La Table each offer tabletop ovens that plug in. Sur La Table also offers an outdoor cooker aimed at serious tailgaters.

With 1,200 watts of power, both of the plug-in models heat up to 600 degrees and come with a ceramic pizza stone to place a pie on for baking. At just under $120 (Rs 7,365), the Petite Pizzeria at Sur La Table is the least expensive and cooks thin and Chicago-style deep dish pizza.

But it has fewer features than the Breville Crispy Crust Stone Pizza Maker ($150 or Rs 9,207). Among them is a window to view the cooking progress, so there is no need to open the lid and let out heat.

Of course, you can always cook pizza outdoors right on the grill without spending a dime on special gear.

But wouldn’t it be nice if you could put something in the oven or on the grill and then just walk away to talk to your guests for a while?

The iDevice iGrill makes that possible, by hooking your thermometer up with your smartphone; once the target temperature is reached, it notifies you over your phone.
It sells for $80 (Rs 4,910) and is available from Apple, Best Buy, Cabela’s and AT&T.

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(Published 03 November 2013, 17:15 IST)

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