The Vocktail Turns Water into Wine/Appletini

There's nothing like a round of cocktails with friends after a long week. That is, unless you're trying to cut down on your drinking. Luckily, technology can help. The Vocktail is a virtual-reality drinking vessel that can make plain water (or juice, or any liquid, really) taste like almost any beverage you can imagine. It's all thanks to an electronic trick and a handy mobile app.

VOckTAIL a Virtual Reality 🍸

The Vocktail is a cocktail glass that's fused into a 3D-printed device that contains LED lights, scent cartridges, air pumps, and a slew of electronics, plus two electrodes on the rim of the glass. The whole thing connects via Bluetooth to a mobile app that lets you customize the drink's color, flavor, and aroma.

Say you want to create a margarita on the rocks. After filling the glass with ice water, you'd tweak a few settings on the app and adjust the LEDs to tinge the with drink a zesty green hue. Next up is aroma: with a few taps, you could tell the Vocktail to impart the scent of lime, which it would pump out from its built-in scent cartridges. Finally, you'd turn up the tartness via the electrodes on the rim, which could zap your tastebuds with about 180 microamps to create the illusion of a sour flavor. And with that, your zero-alcohol, zero-calorie margarita is complete. Like any good smartphone app, your custom cocktail settings are easy to save and share with your friends.

TEAM

Made by Nimesha Ranasinghe and a team at the National University of Singapore, the Vocktail is part of a new avenue for virtual reality where all of the senses — not just sight and hearing — get the benefits of a digital simulation. It's not Ranasinghe's first foray into digital drinks, either. In March 2017, he and his research team presented a device you could use to send digital lemonade to a friend via the internet. It really gives "virtual-reality glasses" a whole new meaning.

To imagine what a fully immersive virtual world might be like, check out the novel "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline. The audiobook is read by Star Trek's Wil Wheaton, and it's free with a trial of Audible. We handpick reading recommendations we think you may like. If you choose to make a purchase through that link, Curiosity will get a share of the sale.