Going from juiced to a joke

Sometimes this brand of hubris can deliver swift justice to a preposterous product. That was the case with Juicero, the company that raised $120 million in venture capital for a $400 juicer that required users to insert packets of chopped fruits and vegetables into the machine to press out juice. The problem? It didn’t take long for people to figure out they could get just as much juice by squeezing the packets with their bare hands. Much hilarity ensued.

Squeezed out.
Squeezed out.
Image: Courtesy PR Newswire

In early September, the company announced that, after 16 months on the market, it was suspending the sale of its Juicero Press and packs.

Hefeweizen in a hurry

If the vile homebrew you make in your garage has alienated enough of your friends and neighbors but you’re not ready to submit to the indignity of purchasing a six-pack, there’s a $1,000 machine for you, too. Yes, homebrew beer now comes in a Keurig-style cup.

PicoBrew was founded by a former vice president of Microsoft. In just two hours, a “PicoPak” (made for the company by microbreweries around the world) produces a 5-liter batch of beer.

“The packs are compostable and look like they’re from Aunt Beru’s kitchen in Star Wars,” a reviewer wrote in Wired. That unfortunate reviewer had planned a quiet lunch and game of cribbage while his beer brewed, he recounted, but when the machine got cranked up, “the volume was somewhere between that of a fish tank pump and an air compressor.”

Instant booze.
Instant booze.
Image: Courtesy of PicoBrew

Multivitamin maker

Evidence is mounting that most people don’t actually need to take a regular multivitamin, but that hasn’t stopped the team disrupting the world of vitamin supplements with yet another Keurig-like pod machine.

Tespo promises a dose of vitamins, tailored to your circumstances (menopause, energy, sleep, children’s health) and free of manufacturing fillers, via a $100 machine that turns a disk into a “delicious, easy to drink liquid shot.”

It sounds almost as easy as taking a pill.

A Keurig for vaporizing weed is also in the works, because of course it is. Wake us up when there’s a Keurig for humility.

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