Hoo boy, you just know Hunter S. Thompson would have loved this. A Russian tinkerer going by the name of morskoiboy has created a typewriter (?) that squirts a different type of syrup or liqueur into a glass with every keystroke. That same liquid is used in a big single-character LCD-like display, that shows users what letter they're typing. This means that different cocktails can be created, simply by typing in different words.
According to morskoiboy, the cocktail typewriter is actually the first thing he's ever built.
The user starts by connecting an upside-down bottle of alcohol (or water or milk) to the top of the machine, as one does with a water cooler. This supplies the base liquid for the drink. Its flow is switched on and off using an IV rate flow regulator, purchased at a drug store.
Each key is connected to a syringe, into which a different type of colored syrup/liqueur has been drawn. When that key is depressed, its syringe's contents are forced into a splitter, where the liquid is routed through a series of tubules and into the display. Different segments of that display will be filled with liquid, depending on what letter it's representing - the letter A is made up of seven segments, for instance, so the liquid from the A key's syringe would be split into seven tubules, each one filling a different segment. The machine also has regulators on the side, to control the speed at which the syrup flows.
From there, the liquid mixes with the alcohol from the bottle, then proceeds out of a tap on the side of the machine and into a glass. What it will taste like is anyone's guess. "You can try to imagine that each letter can have a taste (L-Lime, A-Apple), a color (R-Red, G-Green), or a name (K-Kahlua, J-Jagermeister)" morskoiboy suggests on his website.
The whole thing is a little difficult to describe, but the video below illustrates the process nicely.
