I am an origional blonde so cocktails are obviously my drink of choice but this week in Vienna your martini will be more than just shaken or stirred. It is the Robotexotica festival where some lucky robots (and their creators) will walk away with the 8th annual cocktail robot awards. http://roboexotica.org/en/acra.htm

Some of my friends throw the most amazing parties. Yes their company is good. And their flat is large and filled with lots of consols to play and computers to admire. But the reason I really go? It's their cocktail making machine. One bored student studying for their masters degree decided that an excelent combined computing and engineering project would be creating a machine which could automatically measure out and mix your cocktail. I wish I had been there for the trial mixing sessions! It does make sense though. Busy bar staff with inadequate training can concoct the most depressing cocktails. With the cocktail machine they are mixed perfectly every time and with a few wooshes and gurgles your drink appears as if by magic. It is an eminently portable machine consisting of a waiste high cabinet with a touch screen on top for selecting your beveredge, bottles of alcohol underneath, and a lot of crazy tubing and pumps. They have even installed a bar code scanner and provide everyone with RFID cards (for a nominal fee).

I had thought that my friend's cocktail making machine was a unique idea but that was before I was directed to robotexotica, a site dedicated to the combination of bar tenders and circuit boards. http://www.shifz.org/  has a great selection of pictures of past entrants with an emphasis on imagination, inovation and most of all colour. Unfortunately it is entirely in German so if anyone can help me translate ... Nevertheless, there is a lot more to this field of engineering than just providing amusement. Advancing the field of robotics into the leucrative beverage market is a very wise business move in this increasingly technological world. And the application of artificial intelligence systems to creating bartending robots who interact rather than just follow a recipy is truely impressive. This weekend awards will be available for robots who serve cocktails, mix cocktails, light your cigarette, make conversation with you at the bar and anything else wired and wonderful relatated to bar tending.  At the moment they remain novelty shows but I am looking forward to the day I can wander home after a hard day at work, open my drinks cabenet and have my favourite cocktail poured on demand.  

There is only one problem with having a robot mixing my cosmopolitan; I am unlikely to ask it out for a drink.

A blonde cosmopolitan

• 1 measure quantro
• 1 and a half measures vodka
• half a measure of lime juice
• 1 measure of juice (traditionally cranbery but I don't like it so give me orange or raspbery juice or better even both)