Bartesian – cocktails on command, drink on demand (appliance review)

03/03/2025
By Ray Shaw
In Reviews

Bartesian is a capsule-based cocktail maker. You supply the spirits, add a pre-mix flavour capsule (like a Nespresso), and it does the rest. It boasts over 60 different cocktails.

Spirits include whiskey, vodka, tequila, rum, and gin. They are poured into five 900ml bottles, four of which are active in the machine. There is also a two-bottle version.
The pre-mix (no alcohol) capsules (more later) add the flavour.
Select alcohol strength (from Mocktail to Strong)
Water is from the refillable water reservoir
Add ice to cool it down.
Drink, baby, drink!

We tested the vodka-based Lemon Drop and Cosmopolitan cocktails, which were almost ‘pub quality’. No, they were not as good as a mixologist would make and lacked garnishes and glass decoration, but they were not $20-30+ prices either.

Our take: This is a permanent addition to your kitchen or bar top. Don’t invite wowsers over, or you will get a reputation as one who enjoys a tipple or six.

Australian Review: Bartesian cocktail maker

Note: This consumer version has a rectangular top LCD screen and an alloy hoop capsule hood lifter. It is not the professional version, which adds a self-clean system.

This appears to be an upgraded version, Model 55300AU, with a different dedicated alcohol delivery system. The old one used a ‘shared’ tube, leading to cross-contamination of spirits. We have disassembled the review unit (photos later) and found a vastly improved delivery system that eliminates this issue.

However, there is one aspect we cannot ignore: the 84% one-and-two-star rating on Trustpilot for poor reliability and customer service. The Better Business Bureau also lists many complaints. Granted, this is obviously for the older design, so it can be discounted, but Bartesian has 1336 x 5-star one-line reviews and no negative reviews on its site – hmmm. Hopefully, the Australian company will offer better service.

CyberShack can only base its review on what it finds.

Website	Home page Product Page Manual
Price 2/3/25	Approx $650
From	BartesIan online, Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi, Good Guys
Warranty	1 year
Made in	China
About	It was founded by Ryan Close in 2014 and released the consumer version in 2019.
Elevator pitch	People who use capsule coffee machines. DOD – drink on demand.

We use Fail (below expectations), Pass (meets expectations) and Exceed (surpasses expectations or is the class leader) against many of the items below. We occasionally give a Pass(able) rating that is not as good as it should be and a Pass ‘+’ rating to show it is good but does not quite make it to Exceed. You can click on most images for an enlargement.

What is Bartesian?

A capsule-based flavour system (like a Nespresso) to make over 60 cocktails with four/five spirits and water.

Spirits are stored in 900ml glass jars with a ‘duckbill’ valve to allow spirits out and air in to replace the volume.

A 1-litre water reservoir attaches to the back.

You insert the capsule of your choice. The Bartesian recognises the barcode and selects the appropriate spirit. You select the spirit strength, including Mocktail, Light (40ml), Regular (60ml) or Strong (100ml).

Considering a standard drink is 30ml of alcohol, you may want to be careful with the strength selection. Before we knew this, we went through a 700ml bottle of vodka in 10 drinks! Hic😊.

Water is added, and the drink appears. We tried two different capsule types, and the finished drink was about 150-200ml, depending on the alcohol strength. Add ice and garnish.

Who is Bartesian for?

I am tempted to say lazy drinkers who cannot be bothered to get out the cocktail shaker because, in reality, that is all it does – mix flavour, water, and spirit.

But to be fair, it is for amateurs who like a consistent drink at sunset (or sunup…) and are happy with the selection of flavours. I suspect most users will find a particular set of capsules for their favourite spirit and use that ad infinitum.

It does have a ‘party machine’ vibe—don’t worry, be happy, and drink, baby, drink!

First Impression – anticipation

What will a cocktail maker do? How good are the drinks? Will I become an alcoholic?🤪

The device is large – 320 x 320 square and 440mm high (open). It is meant to sit permanently on a kitchen or bar benchtop, and as you will find later, there is a ‘transport’ setting if you want to move it.

You pour five bottles of spirits into it—an investment of around A$350-400, although you don’t need to fill the bottles or use all four active containers. You do need to use the appropriate receptacle for each spirit.

If the cocktail is taste-forward (soft drink flavours and fruit juices), then lower-shelf spirits are fine. I suspect that most capsules are that type.

If the cocktail is spirit-forward (like a martini), then there is a massive taste difference between a $50 bottle of rotgut and a $100 of smooth as a baby’s butt.

Capsules – The Achilles heel

While it advertises 60+ different capsules, the reality is that you may be lucky to find five different ones in Australia! They also release one-off seasonal varieties. The lack of capsule availability has been a constant criticism of Bartesian.

The more common capsules (box of eight) include

Lemon Drop $33 – 283kJ vodka
Cosmopolitan $37 – 249kJ vodka
Long Island Iced Tea $35 – 204kJ mixes vodka, tequila and rum
Old Fashioned $33 – Whiskey
Margarita $33 – Tequilla
Whiskey sour $35 – Whiskey

So, a capsule costs less than $5. As of the review (2/3/25), the above were all sold out at BartesIan Australia. JB Hi-Fi has the above plus Whiskey Sour and Old Fashioned.

If we search globally, we find a plethora of capsules:

Amaretto Sour – vodka	Apple Pie – whiskey/vodka	Aviation – gin
Bee Merry – tequila	Bee’s Knees – gin	Berry Margarita – tequila
Blackberry Margarita – tequila	Blood And Sand – whiskey	Cupids Arrow – gin
Candyman Margarita – tequila	Dirty Vodka Martini – vodka	Espresso Martini – vodka
Ginger Peach Iced Tea – vodka	Ginger Pear Noel – whiskey	Great Gatsby – gin
Hemmingway Daiquiri – vodka/rum	Hurricane – rum	Jalapeno Lime Shrub – tequila
Jungle Bird – rum	Love Potion – gin	Low-Cal Cosmopolitan – vodka
Low-Cal Margarita – tequila	Low-Cal Old Fashioned – whiskey	Low-Cal Pineapple Sage – vodka
Low-Cal whiskey sour – whiskey	Lychee martini – vodka	Lychee Martini – vodka
Mai Tai – rum	Mango Margarita – tequila	Manhattan – whiskey
Maple Pecan Pie – whiskey/vodka	Mezcalita – tequila	Mistletoe Margarita -– tequila
Negroni – gin	Northside – vodka	Pain killer – rum
Paper Plane – whiskey	Passion Fruit Margarita – tequila	Penicillin – whiskey
Pineapple Margarita – tequila	Pineapple Sage – vodka	Pomegranate Margarita – tequila
Raspberry Ginger Gimlet – gin	Rum Breeze – rum	Rum Swizzle – rum
Run Runner – rum	Sex on the Beach – vodka	Sidecar – whiskey
Southside – gin	Spicy Margarita – tequila	Strawberry Coconut Daiquiri – rum
Strawberry Guava Margarita– tequila	Tequila Sunrise – tequila	Uptown Rocks – gin
Westside – vodka	Whiskey Smash – whiskey	White Sangria – rum

Our sincere advice is that until a far wider range of capsules is available here, you will get very tired of the four or so standard ones.

Capsules have a best-before date, and the three boxes supplied had June, September and October 2025. Best-before is a recommendation, and you can extend that by several months by refrigerating them. Some users have tried freezing with no apparent issues apart from waiting to defrost.

What is in the capsule?

It varies; you can find the ingredient or calorie counts here (the list is not current). They are made in Italy.

The 45ml Lemon Drop (283 kJ) has water, sugar, lemon juice concentrate, natural flavouring, citric acid, potassium sorbate (preservative) and ascorbic acid (antioxidant).

The 45ml Cosmopolitan (249kJ) has water, invert sugar syrup, cranberry juice concentrate, citric acid, natural flavouring and potassium sorbate (preservative).

The traditional Cosmo ingredients are lemon-accented vodka (or add lemon juice), Cointreau (or Triple Sec), unsweetened cranberry juice and simple syrup.

The 40ml Long Island Iced Tea (204kJ) has water, invert sugar syrup, lemon juice concentrate, natural favouring, citric acid, colour (concentrate of apple, carrot, hibiscus) and potassium sorbate (preservative).

We did not make Long Island Iced Tea, but the traditional ingredients are one part of each: Tequila, Rum, Vodka, Gin, and Triple Sec. Add lemon juice, simple syrup, and cola.

It is more about making a capsule that tastes similar to the real thing or inventing new flavours with little to compare.

How do the cocktails taste – Pass

The two we tried—Lemon Drop and Cosmopolitan—were better than canned pre-mixes. They were middling to on par with the local pubs but nowhere near what a cocktail mixologist makes. On the plus side, they are consistent.

Subscription service

In the US, users get a 50% discount by committing to a monthly delivery of capsules. In Australia, the rewards program is different.

It includes free shipping, 50% off most accessories, up to 20% off capsules, and loyalty points for purchases that can be redeemed for future purchases.

Build – Pass

The LCD touch screen shows First use, Switch (Gin/Rum), Rinse/Clean and Transport. If this does not make you think about the machine’s ongoing maintenance and cleaning, then it is not for you.

The build is a little fragile. The outer housing and water reservoir are matte, grey-painted plastic. This is very easy to scratch, and the could wear off with use. It would disintegrate if dropped, but perhaps that won’t be an issue for permanent installations.

The water reservoir is removable. Bartesian recommends using filtered or neutral pH water as it can get calc scale, just like a coffee machine. Scale can be removed with a vinegar/water mix. Expect mould if you leave water in it for a length of time.

Once you fit a bottle, it primes/sucks about 100ml into the tubing beneath. If you remove a bottle, there is some wasteful spill/loss of spirit, which can also affect the painted surface in the long term.

The four tubes are solenoid-controlled before being mixed with water and pumped up the tube to the capsule head. There should be no cross-contamination with this new design.

Mould – a potential issue

If you leave water in the reservoir or delivery tube for any length of time, mould may build up. Apparently, this is an issue in the US and UK markets and explains why there are rinse/clean and transport menu options.

Rinse clean runs about 100ml of water from each bottle through the lines. A regular user says that you need to run at least three cycles to clean the lines and do this once or twice a month to prevent mould. Remember that you lose about 100ml of each spirit each time you clean the device.

Transport mode It purges all lines and should be run after rinse/clean if you want to move the unit.

Limitations

It cannot use carbonated water like soda, tonic or coke. All cocktails use water.

It produces approximations of cocktails that, while OK, don’t stand up well to objective comparison.

The machine produces room-temperature cocktails. You can use refrigerated water and/or place ice cubes in the reservoir. Make sure you have a good supply of crushed ice nearby.

If you are not a regular weekly user, you must regularly clean and purge (wasteful of spirits).

It is hard to recommend until we see substantially more capsules in the Australian market. All six on Bartesian’s AU site were sold out)

Support – Passable

There are no spare parts on the US or AU site; there should be at least glass bottles, water reservoirs, duckbill valves, etc.

Nor are we sure of Australian support because it is all via an email form, and the only support numbers on the AU site are US and UK.

The FAQs are here.

There is an App for Android and iOS, but it is more about the Bartesian Club, and there are privacy implications with an app.

CyberShack’s view – Bartesian has potential

I was chuffed to be asked to review it. After I made the first very strong drink (with visions of sugarplum fairies in my head, a.k.a. hope and faith that there is something in life far greater, more beautiful, and more powerfully good), we started the deep-dive analysis of this, as we are wont to do.

There seemed to be a few upsides and downsides.

The concept is great. $4-5 for a capsule plus $7-10 in spirits (based on a $50 bottle giving 7 x 100ml drinks). Most basic standard cocktails are $20-30, so there is a saving. You can amortise the $650 cost over 70-100 drinks.

The execution is/was flawed. Admittedly this has a new alcohol delivery design, but why are there 84% 1-and-2-star ratings? We can only test for a few weeks. Will it last the distance? Will the appeal wear off (will you still use it)? Will capsules become more available (in supermarkets)?

Our take is that there is considerable novelty value, and in the right person’s hands (someone who will care for it and drink a lot of cocktails), it is okay. If you are an occasional user, it is not for you.

Rating

We don’t have benchmarks for auto drink mixers, so we won’t give it an arbitrary rating. If you decide to buy after reading this review, that means you understand and can manage ownership.

Pro