Craft Cocktails Just Got a Whole Lot Weirder

Chefs always say the plate is their canvas.

And now mixologists might soon be able to say the same thing about the glass — or rather, the liquid inside it.

Developed in Austria at the University of Arts and Design Linz’s creative robotics laboratory, Print a Drink is a new kind of 3D printing machine designed exclusively for liquids. It’s a fascinating new addition to an already growing industry, and by the looks of it, the results pretty mind-blowing.

The setup is a little like 3D food printing, except instead of building a design layer by layer, Print a Drink “injects” drops of edible liquid into an existing drink. What you get is a 3D structure that magically floats within a glass.

Which may seem like novelty — and actually is. But anything that allows mixologists to get (even more) creative has our vote. 

As long as they don’t try to charge us more than, say, $18 for a single cocktail, that is. 

Okay, $20. On a special occasion. But that’s as far as we go.

Then again, man, check out this video:

Have we reached peak 3D printing? 3D printed drinks #arselectronica16 pic.twitter.com/7jSLbtLcmN

— Jesse LouisRosenberg (@nervous_jesse) September 9, 2016

The creators say they plan to release the machine for public consumption in the near future.