Barsys At a Glance

Why We Finally Opened the Barsys Smart Coaster

I’ll be honest up front. I’m not a big cocktail guy. I don’t drink gin or vodka, and I usually skip clear rum. I like to keep it simple. Keep it pirate.

Still, ordering cocktails out is always a gamble for me. A lot of margaritas taste like syrup and cheap tequila. So the idea of a coaster that walks you through a real recipe at home caught my attention.

The Barsys Coaster 2.0 sat in its box for a while. Then a good friend from college, Gus, came over. We’ve known each other for about 15 years. After a morning hike, we started cooking dinner, and it felt like the right night to open it up.

What Comes in the Barsys Coaster 2.0 Box?

The unboxing is quick and clean. You get the coaster, a cable and a user manual. You’ll sometimes see the brand spelled Barys, but it’s Barsys.

The coaster is an aluminum disc with lights on the top and around the side. It came with a protective sticker on top, too. The cable is a nice woven USB-C one. You’ll need your own wall block, though, since one isn’t included.

Inside the box, a QR code points you to a quick setup guide. When I scanned it, I landed on the FAQ page. So I mostly figured out setup on my own.

How Does the Barsys Smart Coaster Work?

Our first night didn’t go smoothly. The app lets you snap a photo of your bottles, but mine didn’t pick anything up. So we added ingredients by hand and picked an Old Fashioned. We had no brown sugar syrup, so we swapped in whipped maple syrup.

Then we set the glass down and poured Crown Royal Vanilla. The light never changed, even with the glass almost full. Honestly, we probably gave up too soon.

The next day, I followed the steps in order, and it worked. First, pick a drink and tap Craft. Next, wait for the coaster to turn green. After that, set your glass down, and the ring turns white once it senses the glass. Now you pour while a progress ring fills for each ingredient.

I made a pretend rum sunrise with electrolyte water to test it. It worked with the sticker on and off. It also worked with the same stemmed glass from the first night and a thick highball glass. So the glass was never the problem. We had just set it down too early.

Light cups are a little different. Barsys says paper or plastic cups need a couple of ice cubes first. Without some weight, the coaster can’t tell the cup is there. In a way, this smart cocktail coaster works like a cocktail scale with lights.

What Is the Barsys App Like?

The Barsys app is free and pretty easy to navigate. In My Bar, you add the liquor and mixers you actually have. We added Crown Royal Vanilla, Sailor Jerry and Woodford Reserve, plus lime juice, club soda and cola. Then Show Recipes lists drinks you can make right now.

The Explore tab is huge. I scrolled through dozens of rum drinks alone, plus three Mai Tais. You won’t run out of margarita recipes, either. You can filter by spirit and by flavor, like citrus, sweet, smoky or spicy. One tip: the filters stack. If you pick rum and tequila, you’ll only see drinks with both.

You can also build your own drink. I made one called the Salty Vagabonds with cola, Sailor Jerry and Woodford Reserve over a sphere of ice. You can bump each pour up or down, save it to favorites and edit it later. For now, it saves privately to your account.

I even found a Cinderella in the library. It’s club soda, lemon, orange and pineapple, with no alcohol at all. So there are mocktails in there too, which is great if not everyone is drinking.

Who Is the Barsys Smart Coaster For?

If you like having friends over, this makes drinks a little interactive. Guests can scroll the app, pick something and tweak the pours. I could even picture a setup like this at a hookah lounge or a fun little bar.

It also seems like a great gift for someone with a stocked bar. The more bottles and mixers you have, the more the app can do.

What I’m Watching For

My main concern is the pour readout. The coaster shows a progress ring, not an actual ounce number. So if you overpour, you won’t know by how much.

I also haven’t made a real cocktail with full ingredients yet. That’s the big test. I want to see whether the drinks taste balanced and the pours land where the recipe says.

The coaster weighs each pour and converts it to ounces, so a 70 proof and a 90 proof whiskey land at almost the same amount. What changes is the drink itself. A lower proof bottle like Crown Royal Vanilla puts less alcohol in the same pour, so the cocktail will taste softer and sweeter than one made with a stronger whiskey. That’s something I want to taste side by side.

Setup is the other thing I’m watching. Once you know the order (Craft, wait for green, then the glass), it works well. I’d love to see that made a little clearer in the box. A mocktail category and a way to share custom drinks would be fun additions, too. I also haven’t tried the BarBot tab yet.

I’ll update this post with a full review once we’ve made real drinks with the Barsys Smart Coaster 2.0.