If you have ever fantasized about combining the following words and phrases into a single experience, you are likely to read this post with great delight:

Styrofoam cup
32 ounces
Pina Colada
Drive-thru
Booze shack
Extra Shots

This afternoon we set out on a completely irrational field trip to San Marcos, Austin’s little sister city 30 miles to the south. The conversation in the car between my friend Jose, who was driving, and his partner Quinn, who was at home working, went something like this:

“Oh cool, y’all are going to get daiquiris and then go to the outlet mall, that sounds like fun.”

“No…the outlet mall isn’t going to be open too much longer since it’s Sunday.”

“So you’re just going to San Marcos for daiquiris?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

The Eskimo Hut is an unassuming building at the corner of Aquarena Springs and University Dr, across the street from Texas State University. Don’t let its convenience store aesthetic and Krispy Kreme Donuts display deceive you: This convenience store offers one particular convenience that would almost (well, not really) justify the 30 minute inconvenience of driving there from Austin: frozen cocktails to-go. And from a drive-thru! You pull up along the side of the building, drive over one of those gas station ding-y thingies, and a happy Hut staffer eventually greets you at your car window. You order from a menu of 30-something flavors—from classics like Margaritas to frat party favorites like Bald Navel. You select from three sizes, and the cocktail carhop cheerily disappears into the back room of the convenience store and emerges about five minutes later with your beverage, neatly sealed in a plastic bag for your convenience.

On this particular day we were fortunate enough to find only one car in front of us in the drive-thru. Fortunately for that one car, it was emanating a big cloud of skunky smoke. When it was finally our turn, the Hut boy was slightly taken aback by the enthusiasm with which Jose ordered a Pink Panty Dropper for himself. I conservatively ordered a Pina Colada, and the other Joe ordered a Crimson Tide, which was of course red, but that’s about the only thing we could figure out about it. We all opted for the family-size 32oz cup, though we turned down the “extra shots” offer, knowing that at some point we would have to drive back to Austin. I really love that they ask, “Do y’all want any extra shots?”, even if they’re referring to extra shots of cheap rum that I would generally not partake of were it not for the novelty of the to-go format. Why don’t more people ask me if I want extra shots?

Now concerning the plastic bag: it is actually a means of complying with our Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, which for obvious reasons has an interest in the purveying of ready-to-drink frozen cocktails from a drive-thru. The bags are imprinted with the following responsibility message: THE STATE OF TEXAS AND THE ESKIMO HUT URGE YOU NOT TO BREAK SEAL ON CONTAINER UNTIL OUT OF MOTOR VEHICLE. THANK YOU. WE APPRECIATE YOUR BUSINESS. ESKIMO HUT.

In other words: DON’T GET BUSTED WITH THIS DRINK IN YOUR CUP HOLDER OR YOU’LL F*CK IT UP FOR THE REST OF US

In Louisiana I once visited a slightly less sophisticated drive-thru daiquiri shack that employed another technology to keep drivers from enjoying their beverages before reaching their destination: a piece of masking tape over the straw hole. As delighted as I am that places like this exist(the Eskimo Hut has locations scattered around Texas, but not in Austin), I find it somewhat amusing to think that at some point legislators actually sat around discussing such matters as plastic bags and masking tape for Mai Tais.

At this point I suppose I should assuage your fears (mom) and certify that we did in fact abide by the bag’s warning. Nothing ruins a pleasant frozen drink field trip like an “open container” violation. We pulled to the side of the road at a low-water crossing and local riverfront hangout and found a nice place to relax and responsibly enjoy our refreshing adult beverages. Walking along the river’s edge, skipping stones across the surface, taking in the vast sky and waning sunlight of a hot summer’s day…it actually carried me back to the (imaginary) bucolic days of my youth, save for the quart-sized pina colada attached to my hand, a fantasy-sized portion of the best college-town well liquor money can buy.

Yesterday I went to an event at JP's Java, a celebration for the arrival of their new Clover coffee brewer. Anyone who has seen the "sewing machine" scene in Fiddler on the Roof will understand the level importance of this event.
The Clover is a super high-end coffee machine made in Washington (at least that's where the company's based). It is sort of a high tech french press/vacuum machine in which hot water and grounds are poured into a chamber on top of the machine, then a piston pushes upward at the programmed time, creating a vacuum and sucking the nectar through the filter, and piping the coffee, one cup at a time, into the waiting vessel. In theory, the high customability of the Clover allows roasters and baristas to tailor water/coffee ratio and time and temperature to create the perfect cup, specific to each bean's characteristics. The cafes that are using the Clover so far are for the most part using it to showcase their rarest beans, generally Cup of Excellence winners--highly valued coffees that one would not dump into a giant batch brewer.

The Clover at JP's is the only one in Texas, and there are only a hundred-something of them in the world.

The coffee is carefully measured by weight, ground to order on a sexy Mahlkonig grinder, and poured in the top of the machine

As the water pours into the chamber, the coffee is stirred with a wooden spoon

As the piston moves up the chamber, it extracts the liquid coffee while it pushes the "puck" to the top, where it is scraped away by the spatula to the right

Barista babe pouring samples of Clover-brewed coffee into cute collectible cups. When compared to the sexy Clover in the background, the burly urn brewer in the back right looks like a gnarly beast.

I suppose all of this begs the question: Is it worth it? The machine costs the coffee shop owner upwards of $11,000. (To put it in perspective, a righteous top quality espresso machine is several thousand dollars cheaper than that.) The cups of coffee brewed on the Clover cost $6-$9 each. Some places are charging up to $20 for a cup of clover coffee. I think the answer to "is it worth it?" is "Yes, within reason." The Clover is exciting because it is the first major innovation in coffee brewing in a long time. It is exciting because it gives schmucks like me an opportunity to taste some of the best coffees in the world, which we would never be able to afford to buy a pound of and brew at home, even if we could track them down. By the cup, even a $10 sample seems like a bargain for the rarity of the experience. I think the Clover will be a great and welcome addition to the very high-end coffee bar experience, but it will be a long time before they become commonplace, due to the high price tag.