Bartesian UK Review

Bartesian Cocktail Maker - 2022 Review

The Bartesian Cocktail Maker is a ‘premium home bar cocktail maker’, highly popular in the US and Canada and stirring interest here in the UK. It has many positive reviews on the Bartesian website and on amazon.

Commerical Cocktail maker or Domestic Home-bar machine?

Disclaimer; we don’t sell the Bartesian nor have commercial links with them. Barbarian sell professional Bar equipment such as bar optics and cocktail shakers, and is the UK dealer for the Mixo-Two commercial grade automatic cocktail machine.

OK, it is a little unfair (and difficult) to compare a domestic home bar cocktail maker with a professional bar catering grade cocktail machine but we do hear the Bartesian come up in conversation quite often. This is generally among bar professionals and cocktail aficionados discussing the flavour difference between a ‘handmade’ cocktail to a ‘machine-assisted’ one, but more on this later…

Interestingly, the Bartesian appears to have succeeded where beverage giants InBev/Keurig failed with their Drinkworks – producing a popular home cocktail maker using pod-machine technology.

What the Bartesian does well...

The Bartesian offers a lot of fun; making cocktails is a breeze when entertaining friends or hosting an at-home party. You decant your own spirits into the supplied glass bottles, then pop your chosen cocktail flavour pod into the machine. The Bartesian suggests which glass to use (cleverly reading the pod’s barcode), you choose your desired strength, then press the Mix button. Its as easy as making a Nespresso coffee!

The size of the Bartesian is compact – its dimensions are only 32 x 33 x 31cm so easily fits a kitchen or home bar countertop.

As the pods come with everything that the particular cocktail recipe requires pre-mixed, bar (excuse the pun) the spirits, you don’t have multiple half-used juice cartons, specialist bitters and syrups scattered around.

Bartesian pods are, according to Amazon, 100% recyclable. Over 50 different flavours are offered on Bartesian’s website, with seasonal variations throughout the year. Bartesian fans love trying the different cocktails the company offers, and their website makes for mouth-watering browsing.

The pods contain precisely mixed, concentrated syrups and juices, with the machine mixing in water to your desired strength setting, so that consistent results are achieved from drink to drink.

An automatic line rinse occurs after each drink, ensuring that flavours from one cocktail do not carry over into the next.

Bartesian cost in the UK:

As the Bartesian is imported into the UK from the USA, the purchase price can vary from month to month. At the time of writing, Amazon are offering them at £698.66 inc vat, although in America you can pick them up for USD 369.95 directly from the manufacturer’s website.

We’re leaving it to you whether its worth taking a flight plus an empty luggage bag to the Big Apple! Just before you go though, read on to learn what we feel are the cons of the Bartesian…we did want to give you a balanced review afterall…

Limitations of the Bartesian Cocktail Maker

Bartesian Pods have to be ordered from America – which makes them exceedingly expensive per drink here in the UK. On the manufacturer’s website they are available from as ‘low’ as $2.25, up to $3.33 at the time of writing. However, on amazon.co.uk they range from £25 to £60 for 6 pods. Yes, that’s over £4 to £10 a mocktail…let alone a cocktail! Currency exchange rates and import costs are particularly high right now so the cost of the pods are likely to change again, but it’s a bit of a gamble and the odds are stacked against us. Without the pods, the Bartesian cannot be used.

There’s no chiller with the Bartesian so cocktails are served at room temperature;- unless you dispense them into a shaker with ice. Which after the slickness of the dispensing, does that not spoil the original appeal somewhat?

The Bartesian holds 4 bottles at once, so you need to switch them over if you want to use more than four spirits. And that’s if you always want your drinks at full strength (or to add water after the cocktail is ‘made’). If you use the cocktail maker’s strength setting you only get 3 spirits on the machine at any one time, as one is used for water.

The juices in the pods are concentrated, so you can’t use your own freshly pressed juices or the likes of Tropicana® ‘not-from-concentrate’ juice. The use of genuine mixers and natural juices are the make-or-break of tasty cocktails. Kinda like freeze-dried coffee vs fresh ground bean-to-cup.

Conclusions to our Bartesian review:

The Bartesian is definitely one to consider for your home bar, especially if you are located in Bartesian’s home market of north America. It’s an interesting alternative to shaking your own cocktails, allowing you and your guests to make cocktails simply and quickly. Once its set up with your favourite spirits, it provides a quick cocktail treat after a long day at work, without the hassle of getting all your tools and mixers together. The Bartesian is designed (and priced) for home use, not professional bars or restaurants; the Mixo-Two is a professional level machine for the hospitality trade, a very different league to the Bartesian in both purchase price and functionality. The Mixo-Two is paying for itself in licensed venues by putting top quality, fresh cocktails on the menu – even without an experienced mixologist to hand.