Future Drinking
Advances in science and technology will soon change the way we drink our booze. There are many new ideas in development at this very moment. Here are a few that are expected to arrive in the near future:
Virtual Drinking Buddies
Why go to the bar and drink with a gang of idiots when you can drink with whoever you want? Within a couple of years you can expect Virtual Personality Taverns: drinking establishments equipped with flat screens on which will appear friends drinking at other bars, interesting strangers on the other side of the globe, and the programmed personas of your favorite drinking personalities. Think of it, instead of talking sports with the moron sitting next to you, you can chat with your best friend on the other side of town, match shots with a fellow drinker in Las Vegas, or enjoy a martini with the virtual personalities of Dean Martin and Rodney Dangerfield.
The Sober Up Pill
This fantastic pill will relegate DUIs and pink slips to the mists of history. Pop one of these metabolism accelerators before getting behind the wheel or showing up for court, and your chemically-abetted liver will crank the booze out of your bloodstream in fifteen minutes flat. Sound too good to be true?
We’re getting closer every year. One promising recent arrival is ReGenesis BioPurify, the offspring of medical attempts to regenerate damaged livers. This herbal remedy appears to retard drunkenness when taken before drinking and negate hangovers when taken after.
Across the ocean, an elixir called Desalco is sweeping the bars and cafes of France. This fructose-based colorless liquid contains a concentration of natural ingredients designed to slow the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream, effectively neutralizing breathalyser tests and giving the user a temporary window of sobriety to make it home in one piece.
Due to these advances, MADD will soon fade like its hatchet-carrying predecessors, forcing its adherents to go back to selling each other Mary Kay products and thinking of new names for their ever-multiplying hordes of cats.
Corrective Beer Goggles
Never wake up next to a bed monster again. The CBG monitors your blood alcohol level and adjusts your vision accordingly with its digitally-enhanced lenses. To compensate for the natural proclivity of alcohol to make people seem more attractive, the goggle’s computer will add harsh lighting, magnify flaws and distort body dimensions in direct proportion to the blood level detected in your alcohol stream.
An optional feature will measure prospective female attractiveness digitally, using the latest image analysis technology. The goggles will then assign a numerical rating to anyone you point the device at, and play a corresponding audio tone.
The U-Pourium
This efficient autobar will get you bombed with a minimal amount of human interaction. Let’s face it, there are times when you do not wish to speak to even a bartender, especially when all you have to pay with is a fistful of spare change.
The super efficient U-Pourium will effectively remove this inconvenience and embarrassment from your life. Just feed in bills, spare change, or swipe a credit card through one of the bar-mounted drinking stations, punch in the drink of your choice, then pour your own with the handy gas-pump style nozzle.
When it’s time for the bar to close, ever louder claxons will chase the patrons into the street and antiseptic sprinklers will scour the modular plastic interior, ensuring the U-Pourium is sparkling and ready the next wave of boozehounds.
The A.A.A.A.
Like a Triple A for alcoholics, paying monthly dues to this organization will ensure you’ll make it safely home after an evening of heavy drinking. The size of a watch, the AAAA device is activated by pushing the Panic Button or when the device senses you haven’t moved around in a while.
Following the signal of the built-in Global Positioning Device, a polite attendant will track your location, whether it be a bar, back alley or strange apartment, load you into a van, drive you home, and put you to bed. Good night, sweet prince!
Vita-Booze
They stick vitamins in breakfast cereal, sports drinks, junk food and candy – so why haven’t they put it in booze? Especially since alcohol tends to strip the body of certain vitamins and minerals (and that’s the last time you’ll hear me bad mouth alcohol).
Ginseng gin, Vitabeer and Nutra rum just make good sense. You’d expect there’d be a flood of such products, but as yet there is only a trickle, namely:
Gluek Brewing Company is gearing up to produce the world’s first alcoholic energy drink, called “Hard E.” The beverage will contain ginseng extract, vitamins and other nutrients in a clear malt base.
Furthermore, government health officials in Scotland are encouraging brewers to add the vitamin thiamin – also known as Vitamin B1 – to their beers because it might reduce alcohol-related health problems.
Just think of it–when some asshole inquires as to why you’re drinking before noon, in the near future you can look him straight in the eye and honestly say, “Hey, I’m just taking my vitamins.”
Beverage Chilling Element
Is there anything more grating than waiting for a case of beer to chill in the fridge? And what is more annoying than lugging around heavy coolers just so you don’t have to swill lukewarm lager?
Those evil days will soon be forgotten with the arrival of the fabulous Beverage Container Chilling Element. Just twist the base of the can and a vacuum pulls heat from the liquid and into in a cooling element, dropping the beer’s temperature 30 degrees fahrenheit in three minutes.
When oh when, you ask, will I be able to get my undeserving paws on this wonder?
How about right now? Self-heating containers have been used by the U.S. military and Japanese sake distillers for years, but it wasn’t until recently that Tempra Technology Inc. introduced the I.C. Can (as in Icy Can), a self-chilling beer container. Large-scale consumer testing has already begun and it should be available nationwide next year.
And there’s more…
Also on the way are robotic bartenders (Robartenders) already in use at several clubs in the US; Talking beer bottles – containing a tiny microchip and a few phrases like “let’s have another” have already been demonstrated at trade shows; Virtual live bands; and even a device that promises to stop the bed from seeming to spin around when you come home shitfaced and fall into the spinning bed.
And you thought scientists just sat around inventing stupid shit like artificial organs and space shuttles. The future of drinking is getting brighter with these new advances in technology. The whole bar experience is going to change greatly during the next few years.
