When we’re out, we’ll happily spend top-dollar on cocktails.
At home, we like things neat — for the taste, sure, but mainly because we refuse to spend time hunting down a bottle of Amer Picon or firing up a smoking gun just to enjoy a drink.
Basically, home cocktailing is too damn hard. A problem that Quenched just solved.
Launching today, the company’s new Q-Kit is an all-in-one cocktail set (a handsome one at that) with all the bar tools you need, plus an accompanying recipe app that simplifies the pleasure of a making a great mixed drink in your kitchen (or office, where we tested it out).
Quenched is the collab between some former Diageo execs, a food/drinks photographer and a TV production head. The idea they had was to make a cocktail kit that would pack away easily, look good in your home and offer you an elevated cocktail experience, painlessly.
According to the company, only 3-5 percent of consumers feel comfortable making drinks, even though a majority of alcohol is purchased for the home. To make things simple, the Q-Kit (“inspired by Scandinavian life and landscapes”) offers everything in one handsome container: The 11 bar tools here (shakers, muddlers, zester, strainers, etc.) roll out and pack away easily, with the bottom of kit serving as your ice bucket and the top as your cutting board. All dishwasher safe, too.
Buying a Q-Kit gets you access to an app and the Quenched recipe site, where bartenders from all over the world design drinks and walk you through them in step-by-step videos. Since these are exclusives to Quenched, they’re only using the tools you have on hand in the kit — and while you’re still responsible for the drink’s raw ingredients, they keep the recipes themselves pretty open-ended and user-friendly (plus, they tend to focus on classic cocktails). In other words, you won’t need to worry about buying a specific bourbon or a rare aperitif, or infusing your own syrups.
Plus, there were a lot of three-ingredient drinks here, which makes for an uncomplicated and ideal cocktail.
As the creators note: “[It’s like] if we were to create skis for novice skiers, we would create great skis, and deliver a ski instructor at the same time.”
Preorders for the Q-Kit start today at $245 (future retail: $395) on Indiegogo, with delivery in September.
Photos: Quenched (2); Kirk Miller
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