Who's Up for a Cocktail ... on Wheels?
Thanks to food trucks, we’re used to being able to enjoy everything from edamame and escargot on a stick to tacos and giant cheese-filled Tater Tots rolling right up to us as we stroll down the street. But one on-the-spot food fancy the mobile-food movement hasn’t really taken upon itself to address — thanks, primarily, to a host of thorny alcohol-specific legal issues — is the craving for a cocktail.
Until now, that is.
At least two companies are picking up the pop-up bar gauntlet, Eater reports. Road Soda, begun by British pals Ben Scorah (a bartender) and Mark Wiseberg (a luxury sports car engineer), offers thirsty throngs of craft cocktails, both classic and exotic, from the inside of a tricked-out 1967 Airstream. The founding duo has turned the vintage vehicle into a gleaming mobile drink mecca offering, Road Soda’s website boasts, “a speak-easy cocktail bar experience with an outdoor music festival attitude.”
Using a technologically advanced, ergonomically correct and environmentally conscious cocktail system, Scorah, Wiseberg and a third partner, Mike Doyle, whom they call their “batchologist,” serve up beverages — sometimes tens of thousands a night, according to Eater. They've sold their drinks at festivals such as Art Basel in Miami and Austin’s SXSW, fashion shows (including a Stella McCartney launch in New York), corporate and industry events, and, yes, birthday parties, weddings and bar mitzvahs.
Road Soda is now poised to put the pedal to the metal and hit the road with a second customized Airstream, either in the United States or the United Kingdom, and perhaps eventually expand into Europe. And they’re not alone on the highway, Eater notes. Three restaurateurs in Boston are working to launch the Barmobile — a 1953 Flxible bus outfitted as a bar on wheels — after raising more than $41,000 via Kickstarter.
Soon wherever you go, you may look up to find your drink of choice rolling your way. Dream. Come. True.