Safe drinking tech: digital 'rotgut' detector

New digital 'rotgut' detector promotes happier, 'healthier' drinking...
New digital 'rotgut' detector promotes happier, 'healthier' drinking...

If you regularly attend UK nightclubs then you will likely be aware of the annoying tendency for less salubrious joints to serve knock-off booze, while passing it off as top-branded product.

Well, if you are packing the new 'Rotgutonix digital liquor analyser' in your handbag or manbag then you can make sure that the drink you ordered is the drink that you get – providing the drink you want is either Johnny Walker, JB, DYC, Pampero, Brugal or Havana Club, that is.

And if you do find that you are being served rotgut, then all you need to do is show your Rotgutonix digital liquor analyser to the bar/club's friendly manager and he or she will surely help you out with your drink dilemma.

Well, either that or he might inform the rather less friendly bouncers to escort you to the door. Either way, you will know not to frequent the venue unless you want to speed up your current rate of liver rot!

Borne from experience

The current Rotgutonix device works on AAA-batteries and finds a chemical composite which that can identify your brand/rotgut within 20 seconds.

Rotgutonix designer Emilio Alarcón notes that the device is still in a prototype that's "in the marketing phase" adding that in a "future version we expect that Rotgutonix will be able to analyse the chemical composition of over 20 well-known brands, mainly rum, whisky, gin, and vodka."

"One night, I went out for a couple of drinks with some friends, I only had two drinks but the next day I had a massive hangover, I was lightheaded and nauseous," says the designer.

"I was supposed to work that day, but I felt so horribly ill that I had to go back home. I came up for the idea for Rotgutonix while under the effects of that terrible hangover; you could say it's an invention that was born of a hangover. Everyone knows there's a lot of rotgut being served out there. A lot of bars are getting away with poisoning us at night."

Alternatively, you could always just not drink and stick to nightclubbing virtually in Second Life... But that wouldn't be so much fun, really!

Via Curiosite

Adam Hartley